Women, Murder and Femininity

by L. Seal

Published 1 January 2010
Women who kill rupture our assumptions about what a woman is. This book explores different socio-cultural understandings of women who commit, or are accused, of murder. A wide range of cases are discussed in order to highlight the ways in which such women have been perceived, and how such cases reflect important social and cultural shifts.

Transgressive Imaginations

by M. O'Neill and L. Seal

Published 1 January 2012
Taking the notion of transgression -- the breaking of boundaries -- as its starting point, this book brings a fresh approach to cultural criminology by exploring representations of the transgressive in fictive texts and ethnographic research. Chapters focus on topics of urgent contemporary interest, including school shooters, violent female avengers, sex workers, those labelled 'mad', serial killers, asylum seekers and skid row residents. The book is interdisciplinary in scope, blending insights from film and media studies, literary criticism and psycho-social analysis with cultural criminology. It also presents cutting edge, participatory arts-based ethnography carried out in the UK and Canada.