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Course schedule information for Crime, Heredity and Insanity in American History

Course Schedule Information

Week Topic            Reading                                                                                                                    Assignment                                                                           
1

Introductions
  •  Read: Scenes from the “The Bad Seed” (1956) A Broadway play about a murderous child born with a criminal mind and the mother who must decide her fate.
2

From Sin to Sickness
  • (Monday, September 3)
    Read:   Walker, Popular Justice, preface, 1-46.
  • (Wednesday, September 5)
    Read:  Haltunnen, Murder Most Foul, preface, 1-90.
  •  Ponder: What is the paradox of popular justice according to Walker? Do you find it paradoxical? Why or why not?
  • Ponder: the illustrations and Haltunnen’s analysis of them.
 3  From Sin to Sickness (cont).
  • (Monday, September 10)
    Read: Haltunnen, Murder Most Foul, pp 91-207.
  • (Wednesday, September 12)
    Read: Haltunnen, Murder Most Foul, pp. 208-250.
     
  •  Ponder:  Haltunnen’s is a story of secularization yet many historians have questioned whether culture did indeed secularize in the 19th century. If you were one of those historians, what one major challenge to Haltunnen’s argument, logic, or evidence could you make?
  • Assignment #1
4  Sin or Sickness?
  •  (Monday, September 17)
    Read: Lippard, Quaker City, 1-82.
         * Feuer, “A Baby’s Death, Grim as the Life of His Mother.”
         * Wade, “Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior.”
          * Wade, “Exploring A Hormone For Caring.”  
  • (Wednesday, September 19)
    Read: Lippard, Quaker City, 83-150.
  • Ponder: What are the implications of modern science on the Quaker City story of Devil Bug? Of the seducer?
  •  Assignment #2
5  Sin or Sickness? (cont.)
  •  (Monday, September 24)

Read:  Lippard, Quaker City, 151-219.
 * Carey, “Brain Injury Said to Affect Moral Decisions.”
 * Rosen, “The Brain on the Stand.”  

  • (Wednesday, September 26)
    Read:  Lippard, Quaker City, 220-290.
  • Ponder: Was your judgment on any of the characters altered by reading Carey and Rosen?
  • Assignment #3
6  Sin or Sickness? (cont.)
  • ( Monday, October 1)
    Read:  Lippard, Quaker City, 290-415. (Skim “Devil Bug’s Dream”).
    * Brooks, “Marshmallows and Public Policy.” 
    * Kirp, “After the Bell Curve.”
  • (Wednesday, October 3)
    Read:  Lippard, Quaker City, 416-575.
  • Ponder: Did you go to school with someone who would have eaten the marshmallow?  
  • Assignment #4
  • Ponder:  What were the fates of the characters you chose? Did they deserve their fates? Were there any characters you now wish you had chosen to focus on in light of their fates? 
7
  • (Monday, October 8 - Wednesday, October 10)

View: “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1932) Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale of a scientist who unleashes the beast within (with romance added by Hollywood) starring Frederic March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart. Directed by Rouben Mamoulian. BW 96m.
8  
  • ( Monday, October 15)
    View: Conclusion of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
  • (Wednesday, October 17)
    Read: Walker, Popular Justice, 49-79.
  • Read:  Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, preface, 1-74.
  • Ponder:  The current motto of the Chicago police department is “To Protect and Serve.” If you were going to write a motto for American police departments in the 19th century, what would it be and why?
  • Ponder: What do you make of Guiteau’s earlier life? 
9  
  •  FALL BREAK
  
10  Doctors Diagnose the Criminal
  •  (Monday, October 29)
    Read: Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, 75-154.
  • (Wednesday, October 31)
    Read: Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, 155-283.
  Assignment #5
11   Doctors Diagnose... (cont.)
  • ( Monday, November 5)
    Read: Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, Preface, 3-40. Walker, Popular Justice, 80-111.
  • (Wednesday, November 7)
    Read: Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, 41-95.
     * D’Agostino, “Craniums, Criminals, and the ‘Cursed Race’…”    * Rafter, “Criminal Anthropology…”
  
12
  • (Monday, November 12- Wednesday, November 14)

 View: “Boys Town” True story of Father’s Flanagan’s fight to build a home for orphaned boys. Starring Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Henry Hull. Directed by Norman Taurog. 120 minutes.
13  The Jukes and the Criminal Type
  •  (Monday, November 19)
    Read: Walker, Popular Justice, 112-167.
    Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, 96-122.
  • (Wednesday, November 21)
    Read: * Dugdale, excerpt from The Jukes.
    * Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927)
    * Lombardo, “Three Generations, No Imbeciles…”    
  •  Assignment #6
  • Ponder: Some historians have argued that Dugdale’s ideas were distorted after his death; could you write a mathematical formula or a cookbook recipe for the percentages that Dugdale attributed to nurture and nature in the criminal propensities of the Jukes?
14  Eugenics in the Courts
  • ( Monday, November 26)
    Read: Willrich, City of Courts, 1-115 .   
  • (Wednesday, November 28)
    Read: Willrich, City of Courts, 119-277.
  •  Ponder: What are the key elements of the classical liberal and socialized progressive views of the state and their conceptions of criminal responsibility?  
  • Assignment #7
15

  Eugenics in the Courts (cont.)
  • (Monday, December 3)
    Read: Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, 122-175.
  • (Wednesday, December 5)
    Read: Willrich, City of Courts, 281- 321.

*  Fass, “Making and Remaking an Event….”
  • Ponder: If eugenics was so flawed, why did it have such success?
  • Ponder: Compare how Fass and Willrich use the Leopold & Loeb case.
  • Assignment #8

16
  • ( Monday, December 10th) Discussion of papers. Please bring introductions and outlines, no more than 2-pages in length.
Copyright 2009, by the Contributing Authors. Cite/attribute Resource. administrator. (2008, January 26). Calendar. Retrieved November 23, 2009, from Notre Dame OpenCourseWare Web site: http://ocw.nd.edu/history/crime-heredity-and-insanity-in-the-us/course-schedule. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Creative Commons License