A Jury of Her Peers? Women, Capital Punishment, and the Public Imagination (AE_HSCapPun)- Lecturer
- PD Dr. Karin Höpker
- Details
- Hauptseminar
Online
2 cred.h, ECTS studies, Sprache Englisch
Zeit: Mon 14:15 - 15:45, C 303
- Prerequisites / Organisational information
- Suitable for BA, LA-Gym, & MA (see below)
This class will be meeting virtually on a weekly basis.
There is an extra virtual session on December 10 (Blocksitzung) and an in-presence joint student conference in Munich on Jan 28/29.
- Contents
- This course will examine the history of capital crime and constructions of the female criminal in popular culture, using examples from literature, film and court cases that have captured the public imagination.
We will discuss literary fiction, film, and TV shows, alongside historic legal cases and debates over capital punishment and abolition. We will debate how gender, race, class, and sexuality shape narratives of crime and punishment. A focus on recurrent tropes of female criminality will allow us to investigate how constructions of taboo, monstrosity, pathological aberration, and the abject often fuel public interest and suspend discourse between sentimentalism, fundamentalism, and voyeurism in deeply problematic ways.Please note that the class addresses aspects of a history of violence, death, systemic racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, police brutality, religious discrimination and other topics, which we will seek to frame, contextualize, and discuss with mutual respect and sensitivity. We will seek to create a space of dialogue and reflection, but please be aware that a certain amount of explicit material may be unavoidable.
- Recommended literature
- Materials to read & screen for in-class discussion: Alias Grace (2017, dir. Mary Harron) and segments of Margaret Atwood’s novel (1996), I Want to Live! (1958, dir. Robert Wise), Monster (2003, dir. Patty Jenkins), Lizzie (Borden, 2028, dir. Craig Macneill). Student projects might also include Double Indemnity (1944, dir. Billy Wilder), Mildred Pierce (1945, dir. Michael Curtiz; 2011, dir. Todd Haynes), Badlands (1974, dir. Terence Malick), Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), and Killing Eve (2018-).
Please read Brian Stevenson’s Just Mercy in preparation and acquire Steward O’Nan’s Speed Queen.
- Additional information
- Maximale Teilnehmerzahl: 15
Registration is required for this lecture.
Registration starts on Wednesday, 1.9.2021, 09.00 and lasts till Saturday, 23.10.2021, 22.00 über: mein Campus.
- Verwendung in folgenden UnivIS-Modulen
- Startsemester WS 2021/2022:
- Amerikanistik, Modul 8 E (M 8)
- Amerikanistik, Modul 9 E (M 9)
- North America: Culture and Literature (AM4 ab 20182)
- North America: Culture and Literature (AM4 bis 20182)
- North America: Politics and Society (AM7)
- North American Studies (AM3b)
- Vertiefungsmodul Cultural Studies (Master Modul 7)
- Vertiefungsmodul Literary Studies (Master Modul 8)
- Department: Lehrstuhl für Amerikanistik, insbesondere Literaturwissenschaft (Prof. Dr. Kley)
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