David Schmid

Jeffrey Dahmer. Ted Bundy. John Wayne Gacy. Over the past thirty years, serial killers have become iconic figures in America, the subject of made-for-TV movies and mass-market paperbacks alike. But why do we find such luridly transgressive and horrific individuals so fascinating? What compels us to look more closely at these figures when we really want to look away? Natural Born Celebrities considers how serial killers have become lionized in American culture and explores the consequences of their fame. David Schmid provides a historical account of how serial killers became famous and how that fame has been used in popular media and the corridors of the FBI alike. Ranging from H. H. Holmes, whose killing spree during the 1893 Chicago World's Fair inspired The Devil in the White City, right up to Aileen Wuornos, the lesbian prostitute whose vicious murder of seven men would serve as the basis for the hit film Monster, Schmid unveils a new understanding of serial killers by emphasizing both the social dimensions of their crimes and their susceptibility to multiple interpretations and uses. He also explores why serial killers have become endemic in popular culture, from their depiction in The Silence of the Lambs and The X-Files to their becoming the stuff of trading cards and even Web sites where you can buy their hair and nail clippings. Bringing his fascinating history right up to the present, Schmid ultimately argues that America needs the perversely familiar figure of the serial killer now more than ever to manage the fear posed by Osama bin Laden since September 11. "This is a persuasively argued, meticulously researched, and compelling examination of the media phenomenon of the 'celebrity criminal' in American culture. It is highly readable as well."—Joyce Carol Oates

Serial Killers in American Culture

Natural Born Celebrities

A historical account of how serial killers have become famous in American culture looks at the consequences of their fame and examines how that fame has been used in both the popular media and law enforcement, profiling a variety of notorious murderers and their influence on popular culture, from 1893 killer H. H. Holmes to terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

George Farquhar, sein leben und seine original-dramen

Andrew Pepper

Why has crime fiction become a global genre? How do writers use crime fiction to reflect upon the changing nature of crime and policing in our contemporary world? This book argues that the globalization of crime fiction should not be celebrated uncritically. Instead, it looks at the new forms and techniques writers are using to examine the crimes and policing practices that define a rapidly changing world. In doing so, this collection of essays examines how the relationship between global crime, capitalism, and policing produces new configurations of violence in crime fiction – and asks whether the genre can find ways of analyzing and even opposing such violence as part of its necessarily limited search for justice both within and beyond the state.

A World of Crime

Globalization and the State in Contemporary Crime Fiction

John Edgar Browning

David Castillo

David A. Reilly

Zombie Talk offers a concise, interdisciplinary introduction and deep analytical set of theoretical approaches to help readers understand the phenomenon of zombies in contemporary and modern culture. With essays that combine Humanities and Social Science methodologies, the authors examine the zombie through an array of cultural products from different periods and geographical locations: films ranging from White Zombie (1932) to the pioneering films of George Romero, television shows like AMC's The Walking Dead, to literary offerings such as Richard Matheson's I am Legend (1954) and Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride, Prejudice and Zombies (2009), among others.

Culture, History, Politics

Zombie Talk

This timely collection provides a historical overview of violence in American popular culture from the Puritan era to the present and across a range of media. • Provides a narrative of the development of violence in American popular culture, illustrating both continuity and change • Combines an overview of each essay's subject matter with in-depth analysis of specific examples • Features discussion of well-known portrayers of violence, such as film and television, as well as lesser-known sources—for example, murder ballads and Puritan sermons—helping readers place contemporary concerns and examples into a detailed historical context • Suggests directions for future research and other developments in the field • Includes a keyword index to enable readers to track continuities across the various essays

David Schmid

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