HIST 324 - Madness, Crime and Punishment

3 Credit(s)

This course explores the social and cultural history of mental illness, criminality, and deviance in Western European society from the early modern period through to the start of the twentieth century. Topics include: the relationship between state authorities and the individual; practices of torture and capital punishment; the emergence of modern policing; the nature of asylums and prisons; gender and class as related to medical diagnoses and legal systems; the impact of Enlightenment thought on treatment and punishment; and nineteenth-century humanitarian reform movements and moral crusades.