Cynthia B Herrup
| Title: | Professor Emeritus |
| Office Location: | |
| Office Phone: | |
| Email Address: | cherrup@duke.edu |
Education
- PhD Northwestern University, 1982
- MA Loyola University, 1975
- BSJ Northwestern University, 1972
Research Interests
I am interested in the relationship between law (particularly criminal law) and culture. In general, I try to elucidate the ways in which legal forms and social force are in constant dialogue. My particular focus is on England in the seventeenth century. My first book was a study of how communities without lawyers make legal decisions; my second a study of a notorious trial as the focus of an exploration of law's reaction to tensions between genders and generations; my new project investigates the cultural meaning of pardons and mercy. I am also interested in the history of sexuality and in the history of the early modern Atlantic world.
Awards, Honors, and Distinctions
- William Kenneth Boyd Chair in History, Duke University, May 2003-
Recent Publications
Books- "When Mercy Seasons Justice": Pardons and Culture in Early Modern England (forthcoming, 2007). under contract to Cambridge University Press
- "The punishing pardon: some thoughts on the origins of penal transportation." Penal practice and culture 1500-1900: punishing the English (2004): 121-138.
- "Mervin Touchet, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven." New Dictionary of National Biography (2004).
- "Review: Lorna Hutson and Victoria Kahn, eds., Rhetoric and law in early modern Europe." Comparative Literature Studies 40:3 (2003): 337-340.
- "Re-reading politics." Shakespeare Studies 31 (2003): 288-95.