Late Modern Ambiguity and Gothic Narratives of Justice

Sothcott, Keir

doi:10.1007/s10612-015-9287-2

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Cultural criminology has an established interest in engaging with the socially constructed meanings which underpin issues of crime and control (Ferrell 2013). Moreover, scholars within a gothic subset of cultural criminology have pointed out the usefulness of employing a narratological framework in investigations of such meanings (Ingebretsen 2007;Picart and Greek 2007;Surette 2007;Sothkott 2016). However, emotions such as the cultural anxieties inherent to meaning-making have received less attention than the defining and organizing processes which confer meaning onto objects of criminological interest; such as prison.…”

Section: Imaginary Realitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abject (M)Othering: A Narratological Study of the Prison as an Abject and Uncanny Institution

Fredriksson

2018

Crit Crim

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The present study investigates how prison comes across as a culturally constructed imaginary. Drawing on narratological methodologies, the study discusses prison as simultaneously real and imagined in society's ongoing communication with and about itself. Through an investigation of how prison is presented in autobiographical prison literature, the study shows how culturally held fears of imprisonment surface in terms of abjection and uncanniness. Previous prison studies have discussed this in terms of civil death and subsequent resurrection. Unlike previous studies, the present study employs the monstrousfeminine motif as a critical device in order to redefine the understanding of prison as abject and uncanny in patriarchal societies. An implementation of the monstrous-feminine motif enables a reading of the prison's particular form of punishment as one that entails incorporation and assimilation; rather than operating on a patriarchal principle of exclusion.

show abstract

Section: Imaginary Realitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abject (M)Othering: A Narratological Study of the Prison as an Abject and Uncanny Institution

Fredriksson

2018

Crit Crim

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While Link truly has met with a terrible fate, the uncanniness surrounding the themes of carceral violence evoked by the game simultaneously invites critique, prompting change. In the current shifting political landscape, with punitive populism on the rise and increasing calls for securitisation, particularly targeting Othered, monstrous groups (Linneman et al, 2014; Sothcott, 2016, Skott, Nyhlén & Giritli Nygren, 2021), highlighting these popular criminology narratives, representative of a cultural imaginary of carcerality, becomes very important. Not only to explore how popular and academic criminological discourses are intertwined, but also to explore how aesthetic accounts of criminal justice may prompt a critical response.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?’: A Hauntological Analysis of Carceral Violence in Majora’s Mask

Skott

Bengtson

2021

Games and Culture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

More than mere entertainment, video games can be studied as cultural texts, relevant for the interpretation and understanding of the public imaginary relating to crime. Drawing on ideas of Gothic and popular criminology and using a critical lens of hauntology, this study aims to explore themes of carcerality in the video game The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. By constructing the text of Majora’s Mask as a horror game, and a cultural text ‘in distress’, encompassing a crypt incorporating a phantom of past trauma, this paper identifies themes of carceral violence within the text as symptomatic of a deep, haunting disillusionment of carceral justice. Relating back to the culture and context in which the game was created, we argue that this cultural text is ‘haunted’ by the trauma of lost ideals in relation to punishment; a deep disillusionment towards a carceral machinery producing the socially dead instead of rehabilitating them.

show abstract

“…Sensationalist crimes are no longer considered anomalies, but permanent insidious features with repetitive themes of haunting and dereliction, from which, in true Gothic spirit, there is no rescue or escape (Valier 2002: 323). The populism of today does not simply come from mass-mediated stories, but instead reflects cultural anxieties and a longing for categorical certainties in the vertiginous conditions of late modernity (Sothcott 2016;Valier 2002;Young 2007). The Gothic imagination is, therefore, not only a projection of anxiety striving to reinforce cultural boundaries, but is also used to actively disrupt these boundaries, "exposing their cultural fragility" (Sothcott 2016: 436).…”

Section: Gothic Criminologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This has significant implications for understanding the impact of cultural (Gothic) presentations on policy and criminal justice. With the increasing new rise of punitive populism, underpinned by Gothic tropes (Valier 2002), as well as an increasing fascination with gritty "true crime" and mediated stories of violence, all highly influenced by the Gothic imagination (Sothcott 2016), the impact of these "reel" constructions on "real" policies becomes increasingly important and relevant for future research. As this study demonstrates, the narratives of gender-based violence are permeated by the Gothic, which constructs certain groups of offenders as visible and illuminated and others as invisible and obscured.…”

Section: Gender-based Violence As Monstrous or Mundanementioning

confidence: 99%

In the Shadow of the Monster: Gothic Narratives of Violence Prevention

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article examines narratives by professionals working on preventing gender-based violence in Sweden through a Gothic lens. It draws on interviews with authorities responsible for preventing gender-based violence in one region of Sweden and explores the way national policies are translated into regional action. Our analysis shows how the “reel” is adopted by the professionals and becomes a part of the “real,” resulting in implications for policy. By looking at the participants’ narratives through a Gothic lens, this article argues that local-level professionals working to prevent violence frame gender-based violence as a problem of two “othered” groups: the “Immigrant Other” and the “Rural Other.” Through a narratological strategy of illumination and obscurity, these groups of offenders are rendered both uncanny and monstrous by the respondents—a monstrosity that obscures any violence occurring outside this framing. The problem of gender-based violence is relegated from the site of the mundane to the sphere of the monstrous.

show abstract

Late Modern Ambiguity and Gothic Narratives of Justice

Cited by 10 publications

References 13 publications

Abject (M)Othering: A Narratological Study of the Prison as an Abject and Uncanny Institution

Abject (M)Othering: A Narratological Study of the Prison as an Abject and Uncanny Institution

‘You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?’: A Hauntological Analysis of Carceral Violence in Majora’s Mask

In the Shadow of the Monster: Gothic Narratives of Violence Prevention

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About