Postgraduate Course: Gender, Crime and Deviancy: Britain c. 1860-1960 (PGHC11250)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The course aims to examine the ways in which ideas about gender, sexuality and citizenship informed definitions of criminality and deviancy in Britain in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It explores a set of key debates concerning the nature of regulation in the modern state as well as focusing on specific examples - the policing of juvenile delinquency, homosexuality and prostitution - in order to examine the relationship between expert opinion, popular culture, social policy and social action. A range of textual and visual artefacts are examined - including film, photography, fiction, autobiography and the popular press - to consider the significance of criminal narratives in the shaping of gendered, sexual and national identities. |
| Course description |
Since the emergence of a specific 'social history of crime' in the 1960s, historians have argued that study of the regulation of marginal, deviant and criminal behaviours is central to our understanding of modern societies. An earlier interest in class as a category of analysis has been joined by work on gender, sexuality, age and ethnicity as markers of social identity. Similarly, quantitative research on patterns of prosecution has been complemented by studies that examine the representation of criminal and deviant behaviour within both popular culture and expert discourse. Thus the historical study of criminality provides a rich subject area through which a range of theoretical and methodological debates may be explored. This course examines the gendering of offending behaviour, penal policy, surveillance strategies and popular representations of criminality in Britain c. 1860-1960. The study will be contextualised in relation to state concerns about national strength and citizenship as well as a dominant belief in penal-welfarism. Whilst focusing on the study of Britain (and therefore acknowledging the differing legal systems of Scotland and England/Wales) the course may also draw on comparative studies of Europe and North America.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Advanced knowledge of continuity and change (including key trends and patterns) in the development of criminal justice, the law and social regulation 1860-1960
- Advanced understanding of theories, concepts and historiographical debates relating to gender, crime and social regulation; and ability to apply and discuss them in relation to specific themes/topic areas
- Familiarity with a range of primary sources relating to the broad subject area (including visual materials)
- Ability to design an essay question and to identify a particular problematic emerging from guided reading
- Enhanced discussion and oral presentational skills
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Reading List
Arnot, M.L. & Usborne, C. eds. (1999) Gender and Crime in Modern Europe (London, UCL Press)
Barton, A. (2005) Fragile Moralities and Dangerous Sexualities. Two centuries of semi-penal institutionalisation for women (Aldershot, Ashgate)
Davidson, R. and G. Davis (2004), '"A Field for Private Members": The Wolfenden Committee and Scottish Homosexual Law Reform, 1950-67', Twentieth Century British History, 15, 174-201
Davies, A. (1998) 'Street Gangs, Crime and Policing in Glasgow in the 1930s: the Case of the Beehive Boys', Social History 23, 3, pp. 251-267
D'Cruze, S. ed. (2000) Everyday Violence in Britain 1850-1950. Gender and Class (Harlow, Longman Pearson)
Emsley C. (2005) Hard Men: Violence in England since 1750 (London, Hambledon)
Jackson, L.A. (2006) Women Police: Gender, Welfare and Surveillance in the Twentieth Century (Manchester, Manchester University Press)
Jackson, L.A. and D'Cruze, S. (2009) Women, Crime and Justice in England Since 1660 (Basingstoke, Palgrave)
Walkowitz, J. (1992) City of Dreadful Delight. Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (London, Virago)
Whitlock, T. (2005) Crime, Gender and Consumer Culture in Nineteenth-Century England (Aldershot, Ashgate.
Wiener, M.J. (2004) Men of Blood. Violence, Manliness and Criminal Justice in Victorian England. (Cambridge, CUP)
Zedner, L. (1991) Women, Crime and Custody in Victorian England (Oxford, Clarendon Press) |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Gender Crime Deviancy |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Jim Hinks
Tel: (0131 6)50 3768
Email: Jim.Hinks@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Lindsay Scott
Tel: (0131 6)50 9948
Email: Lindsay.Scott@ed.ac.uk |
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