- Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Europe (1400–1800)

Catalog description

An investigation of the history and theory of crime and punishment in an age when criminal violence and state violence were often indistinguishable and unmediated. Over the course of four hundred years, Europe experienced a transformation from the persecuting societies of the Middle Ages, through the terrors of religious wars and the Inquisition, to Beccarea's "enlightened" and Bentham’s utilitarian rejection of traditional criminology. Starting with Michel Foucault’s influential work, Discipline and Punish , the readings for this course address dominant social norms and ever-changing definitions of deviance. The course explores the intellectual, social, and political justification for punishment, and the ensuring conflicts between conceptions of authority and individual freedom.