Crime Stories
Criminalistic Fantasy and the Culture of Crisis in Weimar Germany
- 182 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About This Book
The Weimar Republic (1918â1933) was a crucial moment not only in German history but also in the history of both crime fiction and criminal science. This study approaches the period from a unique perspective - investigating the most notorious criminals of the time and the public's reaction to their crimes. The author argues that the development of a new type of crime fiction during this period - which turned literary tradition on its head by focusing on the criminal and abandoning faith in the powers of the rational detective - is intricately related to new ways of understanding criminality among professionals in the fields of law, criminology, and police science. Considering Weimar Germany not only as a culture in crisis (the standard view in both popular and scholarly studies), but also as a culture of crisis, the author explores the ways in which crime and crisis became the foundation of the Republic's self-definition. An interdisciplinary cultural studies project, this book insightfully combines history, sociology, literary studies, and film studies to investigate a topic that cuts across all of these disciplines.
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Table of contents
- Title page-Crime Stories
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1-Crime, Detectioni, and German Modernism
- Chapter 2-Writing Criminals
- Chapter 3-Understanding Criminals
- Chapter 4-Seeing Criminals
- Chapter 5-Tracking Criminals
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index