True Crime Wiki

Week 1: An Introduction to True Crime

Tues 8/27 Introduction to the Course

• Personal Introductions
• Syllabus Review
• Housekeeping

Thurs 8/29 Introduction to the True Crime Genre

Viewings/Readings

• Watch Stephen Pinker’s Ted Talk “The Better Angels of Our Nature”
• Harold Schechter’s Introdcution to True Crime Anthology
• Harold Schechter's Interview on True Crime

Week 2 Colonial Crimes

Tues 9/3 Pillars of Salt

Readings

• Link to the email sent to all students with links to the readings, expectations, etc.
• Pillars of Salt: An Anthology of Early American Crime Fiction, Daniel E. Williams Introduction
• Cotton Mather’s collection of “Pillars of Salt” narratives. Please note: the third set of pages (82-83) in this pdf are mistakenly duplicated here, simply disregard them.

Thurs 9/5 Sexuality, Crime, and Gender

Readings

• Esther Rodgers's The Declaration & Confession of Esther Rodgers
• Patience Boston's The Faithful Narrative of the Wicked Life of Patience Boston
• Owen Syllavan A Short Account of the Life off John ********* ALias Owen Syllavan

Week 3 Colonial Crimes: Discipline and Punish

Tue 9/10: Theorizing the Nature of Crime

• From Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish '"Chapter 1: The Body of the Condemned"
• From Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish "Chapter 2: The Spectacle of the Scaffold"
• Levi Ames "The Life, Last Words, and Dying Speech of Levi Ames"

Thu 9/12: Pyrates, Negroes, and Thieves

• William Fly, The Vial Poured out upon the See
• Sketches of the Life of Joseph Mountain, A Negro
• The Narrative and Confessions of Thomas Powers, A Negro

Week 4 Crime, Punishing, & the Early Republic

Tuesday 9/17: Theives, Scandal, & Murder

• The American Bloody Register
• The Record of Crimes in the United States, Jesse Strang pp. 202-213
• George Swearingen pp. 42-67

Thursday 9/19: From Domestic to National Abuses

• Benjamin Franklin's "The Murder of a Daughter"
• The Confessions of Nat Turner

Week 5: True Crime as National News

Tue 9/24: Crime on Display

• Nathaniel Hawthorne “A show of wax-figures” from The American Notebooks
• Abraham Lincoln “Remarkable Case of Arrest for Murder”
• Ambrose Bierce “Crime News from California”

Thu 9/26: Muckraking

• Lincoln Steffens "The Shame of Minneapolis"
• Harding and the Ohio Gang section from The Big Book of Thugs

Week 6: Video Production-Episode 1 of "True Crime: America's Most Wanted"

Tue 10/1: No Class

• This time should be used for the groups to work on their ideas for their video segments

Week 7: Fred & Allie and Murder Ballad

Tue 10/8. The Ballad of Fred & Allie

Mad Love: The Ballad of Fred & Allie 

Thu 10/10. Murder Ballads

• Poor Naomi, "OMIE WISE"
• Stackalee, "Stagger Lee"
• The Murder of Grace Brown, "THE BALLAD OF GRACE BROWN AND CHESTER GILLETTE"
• Belle, Gunness, "Belle Gunness Was A Fair Lady Ballad"
• "The Murder at Fall River"
• "The Trail's End"

Week 9: More and Better Psychopaths

Thurs 10/24 More and Better Psychopaths & Execution

• H. L. Mencken “More and Better Psychopaths”
• Joseph Mitchell's “Execution”

Week 10: "The Black Dahlia" & In Cold Blood

Tues 10/29. The Black Dahlia and My Mother's Killer

• Jack Webb’s “The Black Dahlia”
• James Ellroy’s “My Mother’s Killer”

Week 11: In Cold Blood & Video Production

Thurs 10/31: ''In Cold Blood''

• Truman Capote's In Cold Blood Part 1

Tues 11/5: "In Cold Blood"

• Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" Part 2

Week 12: Helter Skelter

Tue 11/12 Helter Skelter (the movie)

• Watch online here: http://videos.umwblogs.org/2013/10/23/helter-skelter/ The password is "truecrime" (no quotes).

Thu 11/14 Hippies, Vietnam, and the 1960s

• Truman Capote Interviews Bobby Beausoleil in San Quentin
• John Waters' "Leslie Van Houten, A Friendship"