Course Schedule

Note for Students in History 211

The following is the course schedule from the beginning of the term. It’s very likely that we will change it during the course of the term, but will not update the schedule here. Please consult Sakai for the official schedule.

Description

This course examines the intersection between scandal, crime and spectacle in 19th-century France and Britain. We will discuss the nature of scandals, the connection between scandals and political change, and how scandals and ideas about crime were used to articulate new ideas about class, gender and sexuality. In addition, this class will cover the rise of new theories of criminality in the 19th century and the popular fascination with crime and violence. Crime and scandal also became interwoven into the fabric of the city as sources of urban spectacle. Lastly, we will have an opportunity to discuss how issues of crime, scandal and spectacle resonate in the 21st century. Some of the particular events and trends this class will cover include the Diamond Necklace Affair, the trial of Oscar Wilde, the Jack the Ripper murders, and the birth of detective fiction.

Through this course, students will be introduced to text analysis and data mining for the humanities. This course assumes no prior knowledge of these skills, but asks: how can newly developed technologies that allow computers to “read” large quantities of text shed light on the past? Students will work in groups throughout the course of the term to complete a digital history project that analyzes an element of the 19th century fascination with crime and scandal.

Schedule

Week 1

• Introductions

• Understanding Scandal

  • Ari Adut, On Scandal, Introduction and Chapter 1
  • Patrick Leary, “Googling the Victorians”
  • Introduction and Issues in Digital Text Analysis in this book

Week 2

• Scandal and Monarchy, Part I
  • Sarah Maza, “The Diamond Necklace Affair Revisited: The Case of the Missing Queen”
  • Historical Essays on the Life of Marie–Antoinette of Austria
• Scandal and Monarchy, Part II
  • Tamara Hunt, “Morality and Monarchy in the Queen Caroline Affair”
  • Find two articles dating from the Queen Caroline Affair in the 19th Century British Newspapers Collection
  • Close Reading in this book
• First Paper Due: Analysis of a Scandal

Week 3

• Scandal and Sexuality, Continued
  • Ari Adut, On Scandal, Chapter 2
  • Edward Carson’s Opening Speech for the Defense of Lord Queensberry
• The Spectacle of Punishment
  • Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, selections
  • Crowdsourcing in this book

Week 4

• Crime and the City
  • Louis Chevalier, Working Classes, Dangerous Classes, selections
  • Henry Mayhew, The London Underworld, selections
• Female Criminality
  • Lisa Downing, “Murder in the Feminine: Marie Lafarge and the Sexualization of the Nineteenth-Century Criminal Woman”
  • Cesare Lombroso, Criminal Woman, the Prostitute and the Normal Woman, selections
  • Digital Archives in this book
• Second Paper Due: Analysis of a Nineteeth-Century Archive

Week 5

• Detection in the 19th Century
  • Simon Cole, Suspect Identities, Chapters 1 and 2
• The Rise of Detective Fiction
  • Michael Saler, “’Clap if You Believe in Sherlock Holmes’: Mass Culture and the Re-Enchantment of Modernity, c. 1890-1940”
  • Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia”
  • Data Cleaning in this book

Week 6

• Violence and Entertainment, Part I
  • Rosalind Crone, Violent Victorians, Chapters 1 and 3
  • The String of Pearls, Chapters 36-39
  • Franco Moretti, “Graphs” from Graphs, Maps, Trees
• Violence and Entertainment, Part II
  • Rosalind Crone, Violent Victorians, Chapter 6
  • Find an article on a 19th century murder from the Times from the Dictionary of Victorian London
  • Cyborg Readers in this book
• Final Group Project Proposals Due

Week 7

• The Spectacle of the City, Part I
  • Vanessa Schwartz, Spectacular Realities, Chapter 1
• The Spectacle of the City, Part II
  • Vanessa Schwartz, Spectacular Realities, Chapters 2 and 3
  • Reading at Scale in this book

Week 8

• Sex and the City
  • Judith Walkowitz, “Male Vice and Feminist Virtue: Feminism and the Politics of Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Britain”
  • W.T. Stead, “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon”
• Sex and Death in the City
  • Judith Walkowitz, “Jack the Ripper and the Myth of Male Violence”
  • Find two articles on Jack the Ripper from Casebook: Jack the Ripper
  • Topic Modeling in this book
• Annotated Bibliography Due

Week 9

• The Spectacle of Race, Part I
  • Clifton Crais and Pamela Scully, Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus, Introduction, Chapters 3 and 4
  • Tressie McMillan Cottom, “When Your (Brown) Body is a (White) Wonderland”
• The Spectacle of Race, Part II
  • Clifton Crais and Pamela Scully, Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus, Chapter 6
  • Cleuci de Oliveira, “Saartjie Baartman: The Original Booty Queen”
  • Pia Glenn, “You Can’t Ignore the Degradation of Saartjie Baartman to Connect Her to Kim Kardashian. You Just Can’t”
  • Danielle Bowler, “Saartjie Baartman is not ‘The Original Booty Queen’”
  • Classifiers in this book

Week 10

• Politics, National Identity and Scandal
  • Michael Burns, France and the Dreyfus Affair, selections
  • Sentiment Analysis in this book
• Scandals and Contemporary Media
  • Anita Sarkeesian Interview: “The word ‘troll’ feels too childish. This is abuse”
  • NSA Files Decoded
  • Adam Kirsch, “Technology is Taking Over English Departments: The False Promise of the Digital Humanities”
• Draft of Final Project Due

Week 11

• No class, meetings with professors about final projects

• Crime, Scandal and Politics in the Present Day

  • Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Surya Mattu and Lauren Kirchner, “Machine Bias: There’s software used across the country to predict future criminals. And it’s biased against blacks”
  • Matt Bai, “How Gary Hart’s Downfall Forever Changed American Politics”
  • Conclusion in this book

Week 12

• Class Presentations

• Wrap-Up and Class Presentations

Exam Week

• Final Project and Process Paper Due