Cynthia Herrup is an American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

of early modern British law who holds the position of Professor of History and Law at the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8. ...

. Herrup's writings center primarily on the social history of criminal law, but she also touches upon the historical impact of

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures us ...

and

sexuality Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied wi ...

. Her first book, ''The Common Peace: Participation and the Criminal Law in Seventeenth-Century England'', examined how communities without lawyers made decisions about law enforcement—it postulated that people as well as lawyers were important in the history of law. Her second book, ''A House in Gross Disorder: Sex, Law, and the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven'' (1999), used a notorious

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribun ...

to explore how law reflected tensions between genders and generations. She has held many fellowships, including those from the

Folger Shakespeare Library The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., United States. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare mater ...

, the National Humanities Center, and the Huntington Library.

Career

Cynthia Herrup edited the '' Journal of British Studies'' from 1991 to 1996. From 1995 to 1997, she served on the editorial board of the '' Journal of Modern History''. Herrup was also president of the North American Conference on British Studies from 2003 to 2005. Until 2005, she served as William Kenneth Boyd Professor of History and Law at Duke University.

Awards

While teaching at Duke University in 1988, Cynthia Herrup was a recipient of a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

Bibliography

* ''The Common Peace: Participation and the Criminal Law in Seventeenth-Century England'' (1987) * ''A House in Gross Disorder: Sex, Law, and the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven'' (1999)

References

External links

USC Institute for British and Irish Studies

{{DEFAULTSORT:Herrup, Cynthia Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American historians American legal writers Duke University School of Law faculty University of Southern California faculty Northwestern University alumni Loyola University Chicago alumni Place of birth missing (living people) American women historians 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American women writers Women legal scholars Historians from California