Zhao, Han (2016) Cultures of shame in Britain, c.1650-1800. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

Preview

PDF WRAP_Thesis_Zhao_2016.pdf - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (2832Kb) | Preview

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

This thesis examines the cultures of shame in the latter half of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain. It offers a critical response to two oversimplified accounts of shame in the current non-historical literature: the traditional view, which identifies shame as a socially-constructed and morally-problematic emotion, and the recent revisionist view, which claims that shame is virtuous and entirely autonomous. By identifying shame as an emotion, a sense of honour, a moral sanction, a commodity, and a disciplinary weapon, and scrutinising it through the lens of religion, politeness, print, and law, this thesis explores how contemporaries experienced, interpreted, represented, and utilised shame for spiritual, moral, commercial, and judicial purposes over time. It demonstrates that shame, within different historical contexts, could be social as well as personal, morally virtuous as well as morally irrelevant or even bad. Shame was an essential religious emotion. Religious shame was a self-imposed and morally-virtuous emotion; it was desired and embraced by early modern Protestants, who saw it as a sign of piety and a means to come nearer to God. While religious shame was an emotion primarily concerning personal salvation, shame in a secular context was a socially-constructed concept dealing with a person’s public honour. Early modern people regarded shame as something of great moral and disciplinary value, which functioned as an inward restraint keeping people away from sin, and a form of community and judicial punishments. However, the moral and disciplinary characteristics of shame were not immutable; in the eighteenth century, shame faced the danger of being abused and reduced to a superficial and detrimental concept.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Shame -- History -- Great Britain, Great Britain -- Moral conditions -- History, Conduct of life -- History, Social values -- Great Britain -- History
Official Date:	January 2016
Dates:	Date Event January 2016 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of History
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Knights, Mark
Sponsors:	China Scholarship Council (CSC) ; The Government of the People's Republic of China
Extent:	viii, 339 leaves : illustrations
Language:	eng

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads