Andrew Law
Job Title: Senior lecturer in Town Planning
Institutional affiliation: Newcastle University
I originally trained as a sociologist, although I conducted a PhD in human geography; I then took a temporary lectureship in Social and cultural geography before taking a post-doc in architectural history and then a lectureship in planning. Currently I am senior lecturer in Town Planning.
As a result of these interdisciplinary academic roles, I am not academically partisan. Throughout my career, I have often investigated the ways in which the uses of history (and imaginaries of history) affect planners, architects, developers, governments, and social movements.
Following from this, I have often examined the ways in which the uses of history and urban imaginaries structure cityscapes/townscapes, urban conservation and heritage. Whilst my early research explored British/English cases, since 2010 I have explored Chinese case studies. In this respect, in the last decade I have become an enthusiastic student of Chinese studies (Sinology). In 2016 I passed the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) level 2 Mandarin Chinese Proficiency test.
Publications
Quin, Q., and A.M. Law. “The Case of Notrth Lake (Beihu) Ecological New Town in Jining, Shandong, China: Discourses of Class, Taste, Luxury Consumption and ‘Conduct’.” In Soustainable Real Estate in the Developing World, edited by R. T. Abdulai and K.G. Baffour Awuah, 83-. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83867-837-120211006
Law, A. “The role of history, nostalgia and heritage in the construction and indigenisation of state led political and economic identities in contemporary China.” In The Heritage Turn in China: Reinvention, Dissemination and Consumption of Heritage, edited by C. Ludwing, L. Walton and Y.W. Wang, 215-238. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press: International institute of Asian Studies in association with Amsterdam University Press, 2020. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv131bsxp?turn_away=true
Law, A., and Q. Qin. “Searching for economic and cosmopolitan roots: historical imaginaries and ‘Hankou merchant Port nostalgia’ in the central Chinese city of Wuhan 武汉.” Journal of the Faculty of Architecture (JFA, Middle East Technical University. METU), 2017. http://jfa.arch.metu.edu.tr/archive/0258- 5316/articles/metujfa2017214.pdf
Pendlebury, J., Y. Wang, and A. Law. “Re-using ‘uncomfortable heritage’: The case of the 1933 Building, Shanghai.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 24, no. 3 (2018): 211-233. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2017.1362580
Law, A. “Humiliation Heritage in China: Discourse, affectual governance, and Displaced Heritage at Tiananmen Square.” In Displaced Heritage, by I. Convery, G. Corsane and P. Davis. Woodbridge: The boydell Press, 2014. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt6wp8nw