*Note that in-person capacity has been reached for this event. You can join us online via Zoom details provided below*

From Canada’s Confederation in 1867 to the partial abolition of the death penalty a century later, defendants convicted of sexually motivated killings and sexually violent homicides were more likely than any other condemned criminals to be executed for their crimes. Despite the emergence of psychiatric expertise in criminal trials, moral disgust and anger proved more potent in courtrooms, the public mind, and the hearts of the bureaucrats and politicians responsible for determining the outcome of capital cases.

Unique in the ways it reveals the emotional drivers of capital punishment in delivering inequitable outcomes, The Death Penalty and Sex Murder in Canadian History provides an incisive analysis of responses to sex murders and the shifting politics of the death penalty. It serves as an essential history and a richly documented cautionary tale for the present.

Professor Carolyn Strange specialises in the transdisciplinary history of gender and sexuality in modernity. After studying in Canada and the U.S., she held positions where she taught criminal law, criminology, and cross-cultural studies prior to joining ANU’s School of History in 2010. She has published on topics ranging from the history of Antarctic exploration to circuses and SARS, but she specialises on the history of crime and justice. In 2016 she was nominated as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. 

*Celebratory drinks in the Fellows Pop-Up Bar on the Law School Lawns to follow*

Zoom meeting details (if joining online):

Proudly co-sponsored by the ANU Centre for Law, Arts and Humanities and the ANU Gender Institute