True Crime: Fact, Fiction, Ideology (Manchester, 7 June 2014)

Registration is now open for True Crime: Fact, Fiction, Ideology, a one-day conference to be held at the Manchester Conference Centre on Saturday 7 June 2014. Registration information can be found on the conference website.

Programme

9.00-9.30 Registration

9.30-11.00 Panel 1: Depicting Taboo Crimes
Chair: Hannah Priest

Karen Oughton (Regents University London): Deliciously Deranged: Depicting the Raison d’être of Jeffrey Dahmer as a Celebrity Serial Killer

Jacquelyn Bent (University of Huddersfield): What Constitutes a ‘Taboo’?: Cultural, Societal and Legal Standards for the Identification of Taboo Acts Including Taboo Crime

David McWilliam (Lancaster University): Without Conscience: Re-opening Old Wounds to Pass the Empathy Test in Dave Cullen’s Columbine (2009)

11.00-11.30 Coffee

11.30-1.00 Panel 2: Generic Boundaries and Conventions
Chair: tbc

Carys Crossen (University of Manchester): Invoke Not Reason: Defining the Parameters of True Crime in the Case of Jack the Ripper

Charlotte Beyer (University of Gloucestershire): ‘Angel Makers’: Recent True Crime Stories of Baby Farming

Maysaa Jaber (University of Baghdad): Crime Culture of Monstrosity: The Cold War, Paranoia and the Psychopathy in Post-war Crime Fiction

Abby Bentham (University of Salford): Cold Blood, Warm Heart: Truman Capote and the Transformation of the Psychopath

1.00-2.00 Lunch

2.00-3.30 Keynote Lecture
Chair: David McWilliam

David Schmid (University at Buffalo, State University of New York): The Moors Murders and the “Truth” of True Crime

3.30-4.00 Coffee

4.00-5.30 Panel 3: Place, History, Communities
Chair: tbc

John David Jordan (Manchester Metropolitan University): Real Life Crimes, Council Estate Dramas and Proleaphobia: How ‘Socio-Chthonic Mythologies’ Serve the Neoliberal Welfare Agenda

Martyn Colebrook (Independent Scholar): ‘Do what you want, just don’t get caught doing it’ – Gordon Burn’s Happy Like Murderers

Het Phillips (University of Birmingham): ‘Digging Up Your Fiction’: Place, Intertext and the Raw Materials of History in Neil McKay’s True Crime Television

5.30 Conference Close

The registration fee for the day is £40, including refreshments and lunch. For more information and to register, please visit the conference website or email the organizers.