The Department of History recently hosted the Southeast World History Association’s 35th Annual Meeting: “Water in World History.” One of our own remarkable history majors, Francesca Gibson, received the award for Best Undergraduate Paper. She had this to say about her work:
I received the Best Undergraduate Paper award for my research, “To Cool Her Immoderate Heat”: Water as Cure and Punishment in Early Modern England. My work reframed the gendered punishment known as the ducking stool as a curative process based on Galenic medical practices. Understanding the medical implications of a punishment like the ducking stool reveals that having intentions to “cure” a person can have more insidious foundations, such as a desire to maintain social norms, which have implications for today’s debates about topics such as mental health treatment.
Congratulations, Francesca!