Annie Dowd, an undergraduate student in the Department of History, has created a thought-provoking and informative podcast on the history of the criminalization of women in Canada for her HIST 400: Bordering on Criminal summative research project.
HIST 400: Bordering on Criminal – Canada and United States Crime and Punishment, 1830-1970 was an upper-year History seminar co-instructed by teaching fellows and History PhD candidates Katie-Marie McNeill and Rebecca Smith in Fall 2021. By examining the definitions of social nonconformity and ‘crime,’ the characterization of the criminal, and the philosophy behind responses to criminality, this course emphasized historical research skill development through the examination of historiographical trends in modern scholarship and analysis of primary resources related to prisons, punishments, infamous criminals, and less spectacular violations.
Katie-Marie and Rebecca asked their students to prepare a summative project, using a combination of independent research and course-provided content, to make and support a meaningful argument about a topic pertaining to crime and punishment in North American history. Students were free to choose their own topic and medium according to their interests and future career plans.
Katie-Marie and Rebecca cited Annie’s podcast as “a functional application of academic history, synthesizing her primary and secondary source research and making it accessible and interesting for a broad audience. For the final project of HIST 400: Bordering on Criminal, we encouraged students to choose between medium options like academic essays, podcasts, museum exhibits, white papers, and lesson plans to help make their historical research applicable to their interests and future career plans. We were impressed by Annie's ability to take that concept and produce such a professional and engaging interaction with the themes of crime and punishment in Canadian history.”
Congratulations, Annie, on an exceptionally creative and well-researched project!
