SF-1181 Mad Criminals
The figure of the criminal, particularly one driven by madness, has captivated our collective imaginations since Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, carrying over into film noir and horror, and leading up to our contemporary fascination with serial killers, true crime stories, and extending even to a superhero film like Venom. Through a range of fictional and non-fictional examples from literature and film, this course will explore how the "mad criminal" has been depicted with sympathy, revulsion, admiration, and moral condemnation. On the flipside, this course will also examine how the mad criminal opens up opportunities for examining and even questioning the legal and moral frameworks that define crime and criminality. Some of the recurring questions that will be explored in this seminar are: -How do we "authors, filmmakers, journalists, readers/audiences" define "madness" and its relationship to criminality? -Where does the figure of the mad criminal come from, and how has it changed over time? -How do we as audiences feel competing and even contradictory emotions toward the mad criminal, ranging from fascination to fear? -How does the mad criminal force us to question our moral and legal systems, and what the idea of a "civil society" in general is supposed to mean?