Seminar 3 Hidden Histories of Early Modern England

Pedantry corner Their = possessive pronoun e.g. Their books There = indication of place e.g. There is a book They’re = contraction of they are e.g. They’re over there. Their over they’re = X

Emily Cockayne, ‘Experiences of the Deaf in Early Modern England’, Historical Journal, 46:3 (2003) 1. What is the aim of the article? What is the author looking for? 2. Why is this history different from other histories? 3. What are the difficulties inherent in trying to do this sort of history?

Emily Cockayne, ‘Experiences of the Deaf in Early Modern England’, Historical Journal, 46:3 (2003) 4. Find three statements that are not backed up with sufficient evidence. 5. Does the author fulfil her brief to “explore the extent to which the deaf were socially integrated in English society between the mid- sixteenth and mid-eighteenth centuries” [p.493]?

Ways of thinking and practising in history Appreciation of history as socially constructed and contested Skilled interpretation/synthesis/evaluation of historical evidence Ability to view events and issues from different perspectives Placing particular events/topics within broader contexts Alertness to interconnectedness among phenomena Sensitivity to the ‘strangeness of the past’ Readiness to separate out one’s own preconceptions Communicating representations of subject matter in appropriate forms of expression and argument. Adapted from

Next week’s reading Keith Thomas, ‘The Double Standard’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 20:2 (1959) If you would like to compare it with more recent research into gender and sexuality history, then see: Bernard Capp, ‘The Double Standard Revisited: Plebeian Women and Male Sexual Reputation in Early Modern England’, Past and Present, 162 (Feb 1999)