This course takes as a starting point the fascination for crime that emerged in 19th-century France. It offers to study the ways in which this fascination contributed to the creation of a mass culture whose traces could be found in the press and literature of the time, and later on in songs, movies, detective novels, and other cultural media. In recent years, the success of Netflix documentaries such as Making a Murderer and Grégory, or podcasts like Serial, shows that there is still a strong interest in criminal stories.
Through the description and analysis of some of the most notorious crimes and criminal cases in French history, this course also aims to explore the main trends and specificities of the French judiciary and correctional systems. Analyzing particular cases means diving into a vast spectrum of documents, ranging from newspaper articles and testimonies to maps, investigation reports, archives, and photographs, among others.
Due to the variety of the material, the themes addressed in this course include history, literature, psychology, intimate writings (memoirs, confessions, letters, etc.), criminal trial transcripts, forensic science, the search for truth, the notions of good and evil, personal responsibility, and legal notions such extenuating circumstances.
After the midterm exam (Week 6), the last three sessions of the course will be dedicated to the uses and influences of crime on various media: film, literature, music, and popular culture.
All the documents for the course will be posted on Moodle.
- Teaching coordinator: Guibal Antoine