HIST 413 Seminar: English Crime, 1200-1800
This seminar's aim is to help participants develop critical skills as part of their development as students of history, as well as to provide practice for senior thesis projects. In order to accomplish those goals, the seminar consists of an in-depth exercise in looking at approaches, methods, sources, and ways of understanding historical problems, worked out in the context of a specific topic or subject: in this case, the history of crime in England, circa 1200-1800. Studying crime lends itself to many approaches: legal, sociological, statistical, comparative (across times and places), and cultural/literary, to name only a few. Emphasis will be upon analyzing primary sources (especially court cases) alongside wide-ranging examples from recent writing about the history of crime.
Prerequisite
Open to History majors and minors only