Serial Killers and Serial Spectators

Cultures, Narratives, and Representations
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-90-04-51909-1
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 107, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 580 g

Reihe: Textxet: Studies in Comparative Literature

Serial murder is a global entertainment industry where the serial killer emerges as one of the most significant cultural figures of our time. No longer an exclusively Anglo-American phenomenon, narratives of serial killing are widespread in India, China, Japan, and other cultures. This book asks why this is the case, and how serial violence has been aestheticized in different contexts. It raises important questions regarding the ethics of spectatorship, complicity, and resistance. Unique in its transnational reach, it covers both novels and visual media, both West and East, both perpetrators and witnesses.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Patnaik, Anhiti

Gomel, Elana

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Stoffe, Motive und Themen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Notes on Contributors

Introduction: The Spectacle of Serial Violence in Global Literature and Media

Part 1 Seriality of Violence

1 Abattoir Elegantiarum: Fashion Victimology and Hannibal’s Grand Designs

Seth Wilder

2 Eat, Sleep, Read, Repeat: Excess and Enjoyment in Tomie

Shweta Khilnani

3 Caught in Observation: Sublime tableaux morts in Female Serial Killer Narratives

Natalia Igl

Part 2 Moral Panics and Murderous Sublime

4 “The Horror in Whitechapel”: Sensational Journalism in the Jack the Ripper Murders

Chen F. Michaeli

5 (Wo)Mens Rea: The Strange Case of Anne Perry and Murder of/for/by Women

Anhiti Patnaik

6 A Poetics of Restlessness: The House That Jack Built and the Conventions of Serial Killer Fiction

Luciano Cabral and Pedro Sasse

Part 3 Transnational Evil of Banality

7 Murder and Meaning: The Ordinariness of Violence in Memories of Murder

Reza Pourmikail

8 Lurid and Unlimited: Interpreting Bateman’s Banality in American Psycho

Patrick Lawrence

9 The Digital Banal and Sublime Justice in Chinese Internet Literature

Lina Qu

Part 4 Spacetime of Violence

10 “Blood on the Snow”: Nordic Noir as a Fantasy Travelog

Elana Gomel

11 “Le immagini ti guardano”: The Gallery City in the Giallo Genre of Italian Cinema

Peter Vorissis

12 Santusthi and Jodidar through Serial Killing in Raman Raghav 2.0

Aratrika Das

Conclusion: Healing through Horror in a Pandemic—The Editors in Dialogue

Anhiti Patnaik and Elana Gomel

Über Autor(innen)

Anhiti Patnaik, Ph.D. Cultural Studies, Trent University (2018) teaches at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani in India. Her research areas include Victorian and World Literature, Gender Studies, and Cultural Criminology. She has published articles in Bronte Studies, Neo-Victorian Studies, Journal of World Literature, and Journal of International Women's Studies.

Elana Gomel is Professor Emerita at the Department of English and American Studies at Tel-Aviv University. Among her many books are Bloodscripts: Writing the Violent Subject (OSU Press, 2003) and Science Fiction, Alien Encounters, and the Ethics of Posthumanism: Beyond the Golden Rule (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2014) She is the editor of The Palgrave Handbook of Global Fantasy (2023). She is also an award-winning fiction writer.