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Papers by Anne-Marie Kilday
Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 25, 2023
Shame and Modernity in Britain, 2017
Cultures of Shame, 2010
By the end of the eighteenth century, as we have discovered in the last chapter, the centrality o... more By the end of the eighteenth century, as we have discovered in the last chapter, the centrality of shame within punishment, both officially sanctioned and popularly prescribed, was falling into disuse. It was arguably no longer important to society’s policing of its population nor central to its moral geography. The mid-point of this book is an appropriate place for us to consider how the idea of shame was perceived by those who theorised about issues associated with control, policing and punishment. As we should be aware, the whole issue of punishment came under the spotlight from the early eighteenth century onwards stimulated by individuals who approached the problem from considerably different perspectives. Whilst writers upon punishment had obvious social agendas in mind, we should also remember that many critiques that inspired such investigation had their roots in the enlightenment discovery and promotion of the individual as the building block of society. This was, after all, the age of the Scottish Enlightenment, the French philosophes and Locke’s intensive investigation of mankind’s cognition of the world.
Cultures of Shame
In a variation upon the previous chapter, where the shaming rituals described were community-base... more In a variation upon the previous chapter, where the shaming rituals described were community-based, this chapter relates to the more state-sanctioned forms of opprobrium that operated in relation to formally recognised crimes. More specifically, this chapter is centred around an intriguing and famous infanticide case from early eighteenth century Scotland, involving a woman called Margaret (or as she was better known Maggie) Dickson. This particular example and the reactions to it, can tell us much about how crimes committed by women (such as infanticide) were regarded not only by the general public, but also by the legal and moral authorities of the day. In the Scottish context at least, there appears to have been a clear distinction (or ideological clash) between the opinions of these two social interest groups with regard to the ‘degree’ of shame and humiliation that should and could be afforded a female felon. Consequently, given the concerns of our particular study in this volume, the seemingly conflicting experience of shame and repentance north of the Tweed is important to our investigation. Moreover this example suggests to us how shame could live beyond the strict confines of a regulated and understood primitive culture and how it was, even in the eighteenth century, a response capable of being fashioned and reshaped to suit the different purposes of protagonist, authority and onlooker.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to crimina... more Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2012
Family & Community History, 2008
... On 29 October 1728 an unmarried woman called Elspeth Robertson was brought before the High Co... more ... On 29 October 1728 an unmarried woman called Elspeth Robertson was brought before the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh charged with child murder.3 The jury heard how eight months previously, Elspeth had been working as a servant in the house of a circuit court ...
Australian Feminist Studies, 2010
In the previous chapter, we examined the perceived archetypal characteristics of new-born child m... more In the previous chapter, we examined the perceived archetypal characteristics of new-born child murder in the early modern period. We also identified the circumstances that could result in the conception of illegitimate infants in the British Isles and further afield. In this chapter, we need to move past this initial context to understand the circumstances associated with pregnancy and birth of infants during this era, before hospitals became the standard provider of maternal and neonatal care from the late nineteenth century onwards.2
Shame and Modernity in Britain
This book is the continuation of a thesis that we began to sketch in a previous volume entitled C... more This book is the continuation of a thesis that we began to sketch in a previous volume entitled Cultures of Shame: Exploring Crime and Morality in Britain, 1600–1900 published in 2010. This was fuelled by unease with many conventional theoretical approaches to both shame and guilt. Using micro-histories, we tried to to engage with the assumption that guilt is a product of modernity that largely replaces shame, or at least alters it sufficiently to hide its presence. In this book we followed this logic into the twentieth century and have been surprised to discover that shame is both alive and surprisingly well. Far from being a dated and anachronistic emotion, shame has actually been able to flourish with several of the mechanisms of modernity. The modern public sphere provided opportunities for individuals to be shamed in new public arenas far away from the communities of earlier times. Shame became a staple of the mass media as sensationalism and entertainment as individuals could engage with the shame of those they had never met. In the twentieth century shame even found itself making a comeback through its reappearance in revisionist penal ideas. Its power was also evident in the century’s construction of anti-shame, a conscious psychological buffer against shame targeted upon individuals in the public sphere.
Cultures of Shame
When Joseph Arch sat down to write his autobiography in 1898, he clearly contemplated at great le... more When Joseph Arch sat down to write his autobiography in 1898, he clearly contemplated at great length the formative experiences that led him on his course from ‘plough-tail to parliament’ — his quest to become the first working-class M.P. A fundamentally important episode from his childhood stood out for him, and his very public examination of this should provide important insights for the historian of eighteenth and nineteenth century social relations and behaviour. Arch recalled how the rector’s wife in his local village decreed that the labourers should sit separately from their wives during divine service in the local church. These women were also made to curtsey histrionically, and in Arch’s words: You may be pretty certain that many of these women did not relish the curtsey-scraping and other humiliations they had to put up with, but they were afraid to speak out. They had their families to think of, children to feed and clothe somehow.4
A History of Infanticide in Britain c. 1600 to the Present
Crime in Scotland 1660–1960: The Violent North?
History Today, 2005
... CHILD MURDER IN GEORGIAN ENGLAND. Autores: Anne-Marie Kilday, Katherine D. Watson; Localizaci... more ... CHILD MURDER IN GEORGIAN ENGLAND. Autores: Anne-Marie Kilday, Katherine D. Watson; Localización: History today, ISSN 0018-2753, Nº. 1, 2005 , págs. 40-46. Fundación Dialnet. Acceso de usuarios registrados. Acceso de usuarios registrados Usuario. Contraseña. Entrar ...
Crime in Scotland 1660–1960: The Violent North?
Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 25, 2023
Shame and Modernity in Britain, 2017
Cultures of Shame, 2010
By the end of the eighteenth century, as we have discovered in the last chapter, the centrality o... more By the end of the eighteenth century, as we have discovered in the last chapter, the centrality of shame within punishment, both officially sanctioned and popularly prescribed, was falling into disuse. It was arguably no longer important to society’s policing of its population nor central to its moral geography. The mid-point of this book is an appropriate place for us to consider how the idea of shame was perceived by those who theorised about issues associated with control, policing and punishment. As we should be aware, the whole issue of punishment came under the spotlight from the early eighteenth century onwards stimulated by individuals who approached the problem from considerably different perspectives. Whilst writers upon punishment had obvious social agendas in mind, we should also remember that many critiques that inspired such investigation had their roots in the enlightenment discovery and promotion of the individual as the building block of society. This was, after all, the age of the Scottish Enlightenment, the French philosophes and Locke’s intensive investigation of mankind’s cognition of the world.
Cultures of Shame
In a variation upon the previous chapter, where the shaming rituals described were community-base... more In a variation upon the previous chapter, where the shaming rituals described were community-based, this chapter relates to the more state-sanctioned forms of opprobrium that operated in relation to formally recognised crimes. More specifically, this chapter is centred around an intriguing and famous infanticide case from early eighteenth century Scotland, involving a woman called Margaret (or as she was better known Maggie) Dickson. This particular example and the reactions to it, can tell us much about how crimes committed by women (such as infanticide) were regarded not only by the general public, but also by the legal and moral authorities of the day. In the Scottish context at least, there appears to have been a clear distinction (or ideological clash) between the opinions of these two social interest groups with regard to the ‘degree’ of shame and humiliation that should and could be afforded a female felon. Consequently, given the concerns of our particular study in this volume, the seemingly conflicting experience of shame and repentance north of the Tweed is important to our investigation. Moreover this example suggests to us how shame could live beyond the strict confines of a regulated and understood primitive culture and how it was, even in the eighteenth century, a response capable of being fashioned and reshaped to suit the different purposes of protagonist, authority and onlooker.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to crimina... more Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2012
Family & Community History, 2008
... On 29 October 1728 an unmarried woman called Elspeth Robertson was brought before the High Co... more ... On 29 October 1728 an unmarried woman called Elspeth Robertson was brought before the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh charged with child murder.3 The jury heard how eight months previously, Elspeth had been working as a servant in the house of a circuit court ...
Australian Feminist Studies, 2010
In the previous chapter, we examined the perceived archetypal characteristics of new-born child m... more In the previous chapter, we examined the perceived archetypal characteristics of new-born child murder in the early modern period. We also identified the circumstances that could result in the conception of illegitimate infants in the British Isles and further afield. In this chapter, we need to move past this initial context to understand the circumstances associated with pregnancy and birth of infants during this era, before hospitals became the standard provider of maternal and neonatal care from the late nineteenth century onwards.2
Shame and Modernity in Britain
This book is the continuation of a thesis that we began to sketch in a previous volume entitled C... more This book is the continuation of a thesis that we began to sketch in a previous volume entitled Cultures of Shame: Exploring Crime and Morality in Britain, 1600–1900 published in 2010. This was fuelled by unease with many conventional theoretical approaches to both shame and guilt. Using micro-histories, we tried to to engage with the assumption that guilt is a product of modernity that largely replaces shame, or at least alters it sufficiently to hide its presence. In this book we followed this logic into the twentieth century and have been surprised to discover that shame is both alive and surprisingly well. Far from being a dated and anachronistic emotion, shame has actually been able to flourish with several of the mechanisms of modernity. The modern public sphere provided opportunities for individuals to be shamed in new public arenas far away from the communities of earlier times. Shame became a staple of the mass media as sensationalism and entertainment as individuals could engage with the shame of those they had never met. In the twentieth century shame even found itself making a comeback through its reappearance in revisionist penal ideas. Its power was also evident in the century’s construction of anti-shame, a conscious psychological buffer against shame targeted upon individuals in the public sphere.
Cultures of Shame
When Joseph Arch sat down to write his autobiography in 1898, he clearly contemplated at great le... more When Joseph Arch sat down to write his autobiography in 1898, he clearly contemplated at great length the formative experiences that led him on his course from ‘plough-tail to parliament’ — his quest to become the first working-class M.P. A fundamentally important episode from his childhood stood out for him, and his very public examination of this should provide important insights for the historian of eighteenth and nineteenth century social relations and behaviour. Arch recalled how the rector’s wife in his local village decreed that the labourers should sit separately from their wives during divine service in the local church. These women were also made to curtsey histrionically, and in Arch’s words: You may be pretty certain that many of these women did not relish the curtsey-scraping and other humiliations they had to put up with, but they were afraid to speak out. They had their families to think of, children to feed and clothe somehow.4
A History of Infanticide in Britain c. 1600 to the Present
Crime in Scotland 1660–1960: The Violent North?
History Today, 2005
... CHILD MURDER IN GEORGIAN ENGLAND. Autores: Anne-Marie Kilday, Katherine D. Watson; Localizaci... more ... CHILD MURDER IN GEORGIAN ENGLAND. Autores: Anne-Marie Kilday, Katherine D. Watson; Localización: History today, ISSN 0018-2753, Nº. 1, 2005 , págs. 40-46. Fundación Dialnet. Acceso de usuarios registrados. Acceso de usuarios registrados Usuario. Contraseña. Entrar ...
Crime in Scotland 1660–1960: The Violent North?