Tag Archives: true crime

Ohio Gang on Boardwalk Empire

After the laughing attack that started tonight’s True Crime class, we actually got to some book learning. Tonight’s readings focused on political crime. In particular, we looked at muckraker Lincoln Steffens’s “Shame of the Cities” as well as Paul Rose’s … Continue reading

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An Invitation to a Hanging

Literally! We have been talking extensively about public execution narratives in the True Crime I am teaching, which made this scanned invitation to the 1875 hanging of California bandit Tiburcio Vasquez pretty freaking timely and awesome. Thank you, Tom Woodward! … Continue reading

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Benjamin Franklin a Serial Killer?

While looking up information regard Benjamin Franklin’s short newspaper article from 1734 titled “The Death of a Daughter” I found this bit of sensationalism—or is it?—on the Huffington Post: While working on the renovation of Benjamin Franklin’s London home, a … Continue reading

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Legends of True Crime: Sawney Bean

While reading America’s Bloody Register (the subject of my last post for True Crime) one of the things that gives away the shift of crime narratives from moral correctives to popular entertainment are the cliff hanegrs and advertisements. Just as … Continue reading

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America’s Bloody Register: It’s all about the “Joes”

In the True Crime seminar last week we discussed Foucault’s Discipline and Punish alongside some of the more sensationalized texts of class and racial others like William Fly (Pyrate), Joseph Mountain (Mulatto/Highwayman), and Thomas Powers (“a Negro”), this week we … Continue reading

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Open as a Power Relation

I’ve been co-teaching a True Crime course here at UMW (which is a blast), and last night we discussed Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. If any of you out there were in grad school during the 1990s or early ’00s … Continue reading

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