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Podcast: New Books in Law
Episode: Kathy Stuart, "Suicide by Proxy in Early Modern Germany: Crime, Sin and Salvation" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)
Description: Suicide by Proxy became a major societal problem after 1650. Suicidal people committed capital crimes with the explicit goal of āearningā their executions, as a short-cut to their salvation. Desiring to die repentantly at the hands of divinely-instituted government, perpetrators hoped to escape eternal damnation that befell direct suicides.Ā InĀ ļ»æSuicide by Proxy in Early Modern Germany: Crime, Sin, and SalvationĀ ļ»æ(Palgrave Macmillan, 2023),Ā Kathy Stuart shows how this crime emerged as an unintended consequence of aggressive social disciplining campaigns by confessional states. Paradoxically, suicide by proxy exposed the limits of early modern state power, as governments struggled unsuccessfully to suppress...