Faculty
Carolyn A. Conley, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair
Duke University
cconley@uab.edu
Carolyn A. Conley is a British historian specializing in nineteenth century social history. Her first book, The Unwritten Law: Criminal Justice in Victorian Kent, (Oxford University Press, 1991), uses the records of the criminal justice system in a nineteenth-century English county to examine community attitudes towards such issues as violence, the rights of women and children, the significance of social class and the vague but very important Victorian concept of respectability. Dr. Conley's second book, Melancholy Accidents: The Meaning of Violence in Post-Famine Ireland (Lexington Books, 1998) is an examination of interpersonal violence in post-famine Ireland. By focusing on non-political violence, e.g., domestic abuse, brawls, assaults and murders for gain or revenge, Dr. Conley offers a greater understanding of the alleged Irish propensity and enthusiasm for violence. Her latest work, Certain Other Countries: Homicide, Gender and National Identity in Late-Victorian England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (Ohio State University Press,2007) is a comparative social history of homicide trials in the four nations of the British Isles between 1867 and 1892. Despite being under a common government, judges and juries of the four nations reacted very diffently to lethal violence. These differences reveal a great deal about the cultural and social values of the different nations. She also has a chapter "Atonement and Domestic Homicide in Late Victorian Scotland" in Crime, Law and Popular Culture in Europe Since 1500 (Willan Publishing, 2008).
Her next book project will be a text based on her course Britain and the Third World. She is also working on new research on women accused of homicide in London between 1674 and 1913. She recently presented the preliminary results of this research at a conference held at England's Open University.
Prof. Conley teaches courses in British history, the history of the Celtic Nations, the British Empire, the social history of crime and violence and historiography.
For questions concerning her research, please contact Dr. Conley.
