| Course Description |
Over the centuries, readers have been drawn to accounts of “true” crime—violent narratives involving
real people and real events. And yet, as with any literary object, the notion of “truth” is always
unstable—stories and their tellings are always shaped by the motivations, values, and choices of those
who tell them, often with an eye toward the audience that will consume them. Whether constructed in
order to moralize, to enforce or critique social or political ideologies, or purely to sell copies, “true
crime” is a literary genre that reveals attitudes about gender, race, and class; that illustrates—and sometimes calls into question—cultural norms and mores; that calls on readers to reflect on their own
morbid curiosity and assumptions and fears. In this class we will engage with a diverse selection of
literary texts—spanning from the Middle Ages to the present day and from a range of genres,
including pamphlets, plays, novels, and more—as well as contemporary films, a tv series, and a
podcast. Through close reading and critical analysis, we will examine the evolution of the “true crime”
genre and the cultural and societal contexts that shape the portrayal of crime for popular
consumption. We will explore the ways in which texts and authors sensationalize, moralize, and
convey the complexities of crime. We will analyze point of view: who’s telling the story, whom we
sympathize with, and what insights we get into the minds of those committing crimes as well as those
who fall prey to them. We will consider justice and policing— the role played by the law and its
enforcers in shaping narratives about crime and punishment, right and wrong. Finally, we will reflect
on the ethical implications of representing real-life crimes in literature, and how “true crime”
narratives shape social perceptions, fears, prejudices, and notions of justice and morality.
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