• By the end of this Humanities senior seminar you should be able

  1. To know the basic geography of early modern London; to be able to read, create, and annotate maps of early modern London.
  2. To know how to locate, “read” (analyze/use), and reference (cite) primary print sources for study of early London crime and society.
  3. To compare literary, image, and court records, and evaluate their respective use.
  4. To write about the history of the impoverished, the illiterate, the criminal, and the non-elite, while being able to discuss the evidentiary hurdles to achieve that end.

• In-class Discussion, including in-class writing (10%)
  
• Online Discussion, on weekly readings (10%)
  Unit Quizzes (5% each, 15%)
  
• Unit Projects 1-4 (15% each, 60% total)
  
• Final Exam (10%)

Projects

1. Mapping London. Using Google Maps and readily available historical encyclopedias and image banks construct a virtual tour for your assigned section of London from Bucholz’s and Ward’s 1550 tour, instead focusing on the period circa 1700.
2. Urban Crime Drama Project. If you modernize a scene from The Beggars Opera, how would this affect the meaning? Take a scene and select a modern idiom (say a modern gangster film). How would you rework the dialogue? What works in both the early 18th and early 21st century (or late 20th) settings? What would need to change?
3. Mapping Criminal Case Histories. Students map literally and figuratively specific cases drawn from The Newgate Calendar (1774, 1824, and complete editions of the work online) or The Bloody Register (1764, 4 vol. ed. in Booth). Approaches to early modern crime and the temporary and transient nature of criminal “identity” have implications for modern criminology and social work.
4. Reworking Project 2 (or 3 or a combination of the two), and applying what you have learned within and outside this class, students will work in groups or as a whole to their findings/creation to a larger public.

For each project, we will ask you to contextualize how your materials/ideas relate to the long 18th century and to suggest what it says for the modern city and its inhabitants. We may also ask each member of a group to evaluate individual contributions to the project (including their own). But grading and feedback will be done by your professors.

Additional Notes

1. Class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3:30.  Please do assigned readings before and bring to class on day assigned. Any revisions to this syllabus will be limited, will be for pedagogical reasons, and will be announced in advance and posted on the web. Please consult regularly the EIU Online site and this enhanced version of this syllabus (both online before the beginning of week two).
2. EIU 4114G individually written essays may be submitted for your Electronic Writing Portfolio; please revise based on our comments, and let us know by email you are submitting same.
3.  You will participate in this class through Online Discussion and Classroom Discussion, Presentation, and Debate. We will evaluate your contributions from time-to-time. For discussion we will drop the lowest grades. Thus, improvement will mitigate early disastrous performance.