Literature and Science

'Criminal Animals' and the Rise of Positivist Criminology: From Shakespeare to Dickens (forthcoming) explores relations between science, law, literature, and culture. Specifically, 'Criminal Animals' investigates how depictions of criminals as animalistic affected the genesis of criminology at the end of the nineteenth century. The use and functions of animal metaphors and imagery are analyzed in two mutually dependent groups of texts. These include 'literary' texts - English dramas and prose works featuring criminals that were written between 1590 and 1900 - as well as their 'factual' counterparts, that is, accounts of crime offered by pamphlets, court sessions, news reports, and theories of crime.

(See publications for relevant essays.)

Related talks:

  • Paper: "Metaphors and Cultural Transference" for the Symposium "Metaphors Shaping Culture and Theory" (28-31 January 2009) Rauischholzhausen Castle, University of Gießen.
  • Public lecture: "Criminalizing Animals and 'Beastializing' Criminals - Rogue Pamphlets" (11 December 2008) Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
  • Public lecture: "Criminalizing Animals and Making Animals out of Rogues - Early Modern Crime Literature" (24 September 2008) University of Berne, Switzerland.
  • Roundtable discussant: "Ideology and Metaphor" at the European Society for the Study of English Conference (22-26 August 2008) Århus, Denmark. For more information click here (ESSE 2008).
  • Lecture: "Evolving Images of Beasts in Eighteenth-Century Britain" at: Anglistentag 2007 (23 - 26 September 2007) in Münster, Sektion I "Defining the Human: Man-Animal Relations in Literature." For more information (abstract) click here.
  • Lecture: "Literarische Reflektionen zur Ethik im Umgang mit Tieren" (Literary Reflections on Animal Ethics) for the WS 2006 - 2007 Ringvorlesung Literatur und Ethik (February 2007) Freiburg University
  • Lecture: "Forms of Silencing and Disgrace: The Subjugation of Animals and Torture in Abu Ghraib Prison with responses in J. M. Coetzee's Fiction" (November 2006) Basel University
  • Paper on "'Criminal Beasts' or Animal Liberation Philosophy-Why are we so confused about animals?" at: Between Three: Arts - Media - Politics, International Association for Philosophy and Literature (June 2006) Freiburg University
  • Paper on "The Oppress'd' or Merciless Canibals?: Confusions about Prisoners in the Eighteenth Century" for the panel "Prison in the Eighteenth Century" at American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (April 2006) Montreal, Canada
  • Paper on "Sexual Selection, Fiction, and Culture" for the seminar "Science and Contemporary Literature: Convergences/Divergences" at ESSE 7 (September 2004) Saragossa University
  • Paper on "Criminal Bodies in Literature and Penology" at the conference "The Body as Interface: Dialogues between the Disciplines" (June 2003) Bonn University
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