Current Classes
English 3364 True Crime
This course will study the long and varied tradition of true crime literature across numerous media including confessional narratives, fiction, comics, pulps, memoirs, and tv. Beginning with the tales of witches and sexual vandals that so captivated their 17th-century audiences, to Victorian serial murderers like Jack the Ripper, to modern celebrity crimes and criminals, we will ask why writers and readers so often turn to blood, violence, and malfeasance as the stuff of entertainment.
This course will study the long and varied tradition of true crime literature across numerous media including confessional narratives, fiction, comics, pulps, memoirs, and tv. Beginning with the tales of witches and sexual vandals that so captivated their 17th-century audiences, to Victorian serial murderers like Jack the Ripper, to modern celebrity crimes and criminals, we will ask why writers and readers so often turn to blood, violence, and malfeasance as the stuff of entertainment.
