scholarly journals WRITING SOCIOLOGICAL CRIME FICTION

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 218-250
Author(s):  
Phil Crockett Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
Collaborative Approach ◽  
Narrative Voice ◽  
Stylistic Elements ◽  
True Crime ◽  
Poetic Work

In this article I share and discuss a poetic work of experimental sociological crime fiction titled “You Will Have Your Day in Court” (in Crockett Thomas, 2020c). In it I reimagine the “true crime” story of “King Con” Paul Bint, who for a period in 2009 successfully impersonated Keir Starmer, the then Director of Public Prosecutions. I first introduce my collaborative approach to writing sociological crime fiction, connections to poststructuralist philosophy and conceptualisation of research as a process of translation. After sharing the piece, I discuss thematic aspects of the work, such as the popular fascination of fraud, desire for explanations for criminal acts, and the narrative constraints placed on people who have experienced criminalisation. I also consider stylistic elements including use of narrative voice, characterisation, and narrative structure. I hope that this article is of interest to scholars aiming to marry poststructuralist thought with an experimental approach to writing sociological fiction.

‘Europudding’ or European co-production? The archaeology of the television series Eurocops (1988–94)

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-163
Author(s):  
Alice Jacquelin
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Cultural Sovereignty ◽  
The North ◽  
American Hegemony ◽  
Television Programme ◽  
The Media ◽  
Tv Show

This chapter examines the case of Eurocops, a crime TV show produced by the European Coproduction Association – composed by one private and six public service broadcasting (PSB) channels of seven European countries – from 1988 to 1994 (71 episodes). Although it is one of the first European co-productions of its kind, Eurocops was a critical and commercial fiasco: what were its faults? Following Ib Bondebjerg’s methodology, this article aims at exploring the failure of this ‘Europudding’. The first section places Eurocops in the media landscape of the late 1980s and explains why this series can be considered as a ‘Europudding’ trying to enforce Europe’s cultural sovereignty against the North American hegemony. The second section analyses how the decentralized PSB production of Eurocops implied the use of an inconsistent narrative structure making the single episodes appear as part of a loose ‘collection’ of crime fiction. This partly explains the lukewarm critical reception of this television programme. The third section examines the cultural meaning of the series and is based on the analysis of the 48 episodes we had access to (through the INA French archives). The lack of transnational ‘encounters’ or dialogues – compared to other more recent cop shows such as The Team, The Killing and The Bridge – reveals the absence of a strong European identity at the time of production.

scholarly journals ‘[B]etween power and the people’: Journalist-Investigators in Nordic Crime Fiction

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-78
Author(s):  
Minna Vuohelainen
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
Social Injustice ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Welfare State

Recent Nordic crime fiction contains numerous amateur detectives who are professional journalists. Their presence is partly explained by the shared roots and formal affinities of crime reportage and crime fiction, and by the journalistic backgrounds of many Nordic crime writers. However, the rise of the journalist-investigator as a rival to traditional police detectives is also a mark of growing distrust in the competence of the Nordic welfare state and its officials. Nordic journalist-investigators are typically crusading reporters motivated by a desire to uncover and prevent social injustice, including the neglect and abuse of vulnerable social groups by absent, incompetent or corrupt public officials. In acting as moral guardians of social justice, journalist-investigators carry out the principle of the press as a fourth estate, designed to check state power by publicising abuses of authority, and signal a possible shift from the welfare state towards a civil society. However, this role is also compromised by the ethical dilemmas journalist-investigators face between the demands of uncovering information, protecting vulnerable witnesses, informing the public, preventing crime and meeting commercial imperatives. These conflicts spotlight troubling tendencies within crime fiction and crime reportage: both kinds of writing are underpinned by a narrative structure of anticipation, suspense and dramatic revelation and premised upon the reader's voyeuristic investment in sensational subjects.

George Moore

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-116
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Grubgeld
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Narrative Voice ◽  
George Moore

This chapter examines the significance of George Moore’s contribution to the development of modern Irish fiction, and in particular his significance as Ireland’s first modernist novelist. It argues that Moore’s novels from early to late bring to Irish fiction not only a frank discussion of gender and desire but also present ongoing challenges to the conventions of fiction and the boundaries of genre. The discussion explains how, through his focus on gender and sexuality and a boldly experimental approach to narrative voice and structure, Moore propelled the Irish novel into the twentieth century, moving it beyond political melodrama, retellings of folklore, and the Anglo-Irish Gothic.

scholarly journals FORMS OF OPPOSITIONS IN THE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE OF “ANNE OF GREEN GABLES” BY L.M. MONTGOMERY

2021 ◽  
pp. 20-25
Author(s):  
K. NIKOLENKO ◽  
O. NIKOLENKO
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Original Text ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Anne Of Green Gables ◽  
Stylistic Elements

The paper aims to explore different forms of oppositions in the narrative structure of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s critically acclaimed novel “Anne of Green Gables”, which was first published in 1908. Because L. M. Montgomery’s works have not been sufficiently explored in the realm of narratology, the following paper seeks to begin covering this gap by analysing key oppositions in “Anne of Green Gables” while also taking into consideration their significance in terms of a broader cultural and historical context, as well as accounting for the changes introduced by L.M. Montgomery to the genre of the novel (specifically, Bildungsroman). Having analysed the original text of the novel, we have determined that the key oppositions in “Anne of Green Gables” (commonplace/romantic worldview, religion/godlessness, love/friendship, woman/man (girl/boy), childhood/adulthood, orphancy/family, loneliness/belonging, mercy/indifference, etc) play an important role in defining the conflict dynamic between characters. By opposing stylistic elements, thematic and plot formulae, the author is able to provide an in-depth perspective of her heroine’s experiences, as well as exploring various viewpoints (Anne Shirley, Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, Rachel Lynde, etc) when it comes to the same events. L.M. Montgomery has also updated the genre of Bildungsroman by reimagining the conventional topics of “female” literature (raising girls to be future wives and mothers, their love afflictions and desire to get married) and replacing them with new and relevant issues (the influence of literature and culture on one’s personality, the role of friendship in a young person’s life, using creativity as a means to reinterpret one’s surroundings and overcome inner conflict, etc).

scholarly journals “Translated from the dead”: The legibility of violence in Ivan Vladislavić’s101 Detectives

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirby Manià
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Dead ◽  
To Come ◽  
True Crime ◽  
Detective Genre

In light of the contemporary popularity of crime fiction, true crime, and crime television, avid consumers of these kinds of narratives like to think of themselves as amateur detectives — schooled in the discourse of observation and deduction. Readers of crime fiction become accustomed to a kind of formula, comforted in the knowledge that the mystery will be resolved and the perpetrator apprehended. However, this article investigates how a number of stories in Ivan Vladislavić’s 101 Detectives challenge the conventions of legibility in representing crime in post-apartheid South Africa. The mediations of language, reading, and writing as modes of detection are shown in these short stories to come up short. Instead, and through the stylistic and formalistic frame provided by the anti-detective genre, acts of detection are defeated, closure is deferred, and order is not restored. Writing crime and violence reveals a matrix of structural violences in the postcolony, experiences that cannot be “translated from the dead”. The article argues that while violence and crime are not unrepresentable per se, the degree to which they can be “managed” or “contained” by language or fiction is limited.

scholarly journals True Crime Narratives

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-40
Author(s):  
Fiona Peters
Keyword(s):  
Real Life ◽  
Central Area ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
Serial Killer ◽  
The Real ◽  
Ethical Choice ◽  
Crime Narratives ◽  
Area Of Interest ◽  
True Crime

This article investigates the contemporary fascination with true crime narratives, an subject which is fast becoming a central area of interest in crime fiction studies. As the overarching genre of crime fiction itself becomes the most read literature genre, not to mention its growing popularity in other popular cultural mediums – TV, film, documentary, podcast, blogs, etc., true crime – which has always been a popular sub-genre – is arguably moving centre stage aligned to our recent obsession with the real life figure of the serial killer. The usual discussions of both individual and collective obsession and fascination with such topics, is generally limited to arguments within conscious parameters of ethical choice, This paper will explore an alterative reading that introduces the Lacanian psychoanalytic concepts of the sinthome and jouissance, and argues that any reading of these topics cannot be contained within conceptions of rationality and ethical choice.

scholarly journals Sylviculture et revitalisation des habitats des Tétraonidés dans le canton de Neuchâtel (Suisse) | Silviculture and revitalisation of the Tetrao habitats in Canton Neuchâtel (Switzerland)

2006 ◽  
Vol 157 (7) ◽  
pp. 263-270
Author(s):  
Blaise Mulhauser ◽  
Pascal Junod
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Collaborative Approach ◽  
Forest Owners ◽  
Hazel Grouse ◽  
Vegetative Structure ◽  
The Creation

Since initial awareness at the end of the 1980s of the contribution that differentiated silviculture can make to the survival of the capercaille and hazel grouse, a steadily growing collaborative approach has developed between grouse specialists, forest owners and silvicultural professionals. The article presents the experimental approach underway in Canton Neuchâtel with the aim of promoting the revitalisation of the habitat of these bird species. Founded on the setting up of networks of the regions' populations the forestry measures aim at the creation of a structured «patchwork» environment; each essential vegetative structure of the habitat of each species constitutes a particular part of the whole.

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