Crime and Punishment in Late Imperial China: Law, State Formation, and Society

How did crime and punishment in late imperial China compare to other parts of the world? What place did the law have in the imperial Chinese state's strategies of governance and in resolving social grievances? How did certain groups and behaviors come to be criminalized, and how did this relate to broader contexts of pre-modern Chinese society? How was Chinese law perceived by foreign observers? Over the course of the quarter, we will utilize a wide range of both Qing legal documents and other types of primary sources to search for answers to these questions.