True? Crime: (De)Composing Forensic Investigation
Writing in this course will explore the question of evidence both in relationship to the investigation of violent crime and the composition of academic analysis. Specifically you will focus on, in the words of Wendy Lesser, “the increasingly blurry borderline between real murder and fictional murder, between murder as news and murder as art, between event and story” (Pictures at an Execution 1). The genre of “true crime” provides the course with a specific example of the permeability of the boundaries Lesser describes. This genre also crosses mediums: court transcripts, newspapers, magazines, books, television news, even television and feature-length docudramas. Such mutation allows you to examine how the context surrounding facts and documents change their meaning, confounding any notion of the inherent authenticity of material evidence.
We will also examine how the explosion of forensic science techniques and narratives influence the collection, presentation, and explanation of physical evidence. The Greek physician, Antistius, who examined the corpse of Julius Caesar to determine which of the twenty-three stab wounds produced the fatal injury, has been called one of the earliest “forensic” detectives. He receives this designation because he took an empirical approach to analyzing the victim and because announced his findings “before the forum,” offering a compelling story of what happened. With this ancestry, one can see the links between vision, speech, narrative, and materiality at the root of the term “forensic.” Today, these connections are perpetuated and extended in mass market publications which use “true crime” stories and myriad scientific technologies to reiterate the infallibility of forensic scientists and their findings. Such certainty is demonstrated in the oft-quoted CSI slogan: “people lie, evidence doesn’t.”
Course texts (which will include cultural/media studies scholarship, true-crime narratives, and news reporting) will provide the historical and theoretical framework for two major writing projects. 1. An analysis of the shifting narratives of a true-crime case (of your own selection) as it is covered by different media: local newspaper, local television broadcast, national newspaper, national news magazine, true crime novel, national news television program, prime-time television show, feature-length documentary or docudrama. The final product for project 1 will be a paper, about 10-12 pages in length. 2. An analysis of the visual rhetoric employed by forensic “textbooks” geared to a general readership. The final product for project 2 will be a collaborative piece exploring alternative writing forms (e.g. a Wiki, Blog, or Museum exhibition catalog) that specifically engage visual images.
Each project will follow progressive writing steps. Students will work collaboratively as part of an active revision process that is the heart of academic scholarship. There will be short writing assignments due each class period; students will present their written work on these days, to jumpstart our discussions about how evidence is proffered within course readings.
CAUTION: Crime novelist Barbara Wilson has noted that the investigators take an “active role concerning death.” Such a role requires interaction with graphic depictions of both the human body and the human capacity for violence. Some course materials may be considered gruesome, even horrific. Take your own personal comfort into consideration before enrolling.
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