ATS2557 Fears and fantasies: Deviance and criminality in the modern world

The unit will explore changing conceptions of deviance, criminality and disorder since 1500. Beginning with early modern concerns about spectacular punishment, it examines key shifts in ideas about the origins of criminality and 'criminal defects'; changing regimes of punishment and incarceration; the history of disease, disability, 'lunacy' and 'freaks'; panics over juvenile delinquency; and the history of monstrosity. It will explore the role of fears and fantasies in the development of structures of power and authority, deviance as a focus for political mobilisation, and the connections and differences between deviance, transgression and resistance.