Brunon-Ernst, Anne

Anne BRUNON-ERNST is Professor in Legal English at Panthéon-Assas University (Paris, France), and researcher at the Cersa (Panthéon-Assas) and at the Centre Bentham (ScPo, Paris). Her research interests focus on the British legal philosopher Jeremy Bentham. She edits the Revue d’études benthamiennes.

Prior to lecturing at Panthéon-Assas University, Anne Brunon-Ernst was a teaching assistant at Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland), at the University of Witswatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa), and at Panthéon-Sorbonne University (Paris, France). She was also a visiting scholar at Brown University (Providence, USA), an honorary fellow at the University of Manchester (Manchester, UK), a research fellow at the Centre Perelman (UCL, Brussels, Belgium) and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University (ANU, Canberra, Australia).

Anne Brunon-Ernst worked on (1) Bentham's Panopticon schemes (Le Panoptique des Pauvres, PSN, 2007) ; (2) utilitarianism and Foucault (Utilitarian Biopolitics, Pickering & Chatto, 2012; (ed.) Beyond Foucault, Ashgate, 2012) ; and (3) the concept of indirect legislation both in Bentham and in its contemporary reappropriations ((co-ed.) Indirect Legislation: Bentham’s Regulatory Revolution, spec. issue in History of European Ideas, 2017; (co-ed.) Nudges et normativités, Hermann, 2018). Her current research interests include investigating surveillance issues in the humanities ((co-ed.) Watcher, Watching, Watched, to be published), and Bentham’s influence on the making of Australia ((ed.) Panopticons in Australia, spec. issue in Revue d'études benthamiennes, 2021).

Anne BRUNON-ERNST was educated at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Cachan, France). She holds a PhD (2003) and a habilitation thesis (2012) from the Sorbonne-Nouvelle University (Paris, France). Her book Beyond Foucault was awarded the 'research-essential' classification.

Fields of Expertise: 

• Cassical Utilitarianism (J. Bentham and JS Mill)
• Panopticsm, Biopolitics and Governmentality (M. Foucault)
• Normativities (indirect legislation, nudges, choice architecture, behavioural insights)
• Surveillance and humanities
• Law and language

Publications: Anne Brunon-Ernst's publications