Serial Killers: Death and Life in America's Wound CultureIn this provocative cultural study, the serial killer emerges as a central figure in what Mark Seltzer calls 'America's wound culture'. From the traumas displayed by talk show guests and political candidates, to the violent entertainment of Crash or The Alienist, to the latest terrible report of mass murder, we are surrounded by the accident from which we cannot avert our eyes. Bringing depth and shadow to our collective portrait of what a serial killer must be, Mark Seltzer draws upon popular sources, scholarly analyses, and the language of psychoanalysis to explore the genesis of this uniquely modern phenomenon. Revealed is a fascination with machines and technological reproduction, with the singular and the mass, with definitions of self, other, and intimacy. What emerges is a disturbing picture of how contemporary culture is haunted by technology and the instability of identity. |
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addiction American appears basic become bodily body bound boundaries Bundy called cause compulsive construction counts course crime crowd culture death described desire difference distance distinction drive effect example experience face failure fantasy figure Hence Holmes human identification identity individual inside interior intimacy killing kind least lines literalization living logic look machine machine culture male mass matter means mechanical merely mind motive nature normal notion novel numbers once pathological persons popular posits possible precisely Press Psychoanalysis psychology public sphere quoted radical recent reference relation relays repetitive representation reproduction scene seems seen sense serial killer serial murder serial violence sexual simply simulation social society sort spaces spectacle story substitution takes technologies thing tion trans trauma turn typical understanding University Press victims violence visible wound writing York