Investigating cinema under the magnifying glass
From a look at classics like Psycho and Double Indemnity to recent films like Traffic and Thelma & Louise, Nicole Rafter and Michelle Brown show that criminological theory is produced not only in the academy, through scholarly research, but also in popular culture, through film. Criminology Goes to the Movies connects with ways in which students are already thinking criminologically through engagements with popular culture, encouraging them to use the everyday world as a vehicle for theorizing and understanding both crime and perceptions of criminality. The first work to bring a systematic and sophisticated criminological perspective to bear on crime films, Rafter and Brown's book provides a fresh way of looking at cinema, using the concepts and analytical tools of criminology to uncover previously unnoticed meanings in film, ultimately making the study of criminological theory more engaging and effective for students while simultaneously demonstrating how theories of crime circulate in our mass-mediated worlds. The result is an illuminating new way of seeing movies and a delightful way of learning about criminology.

Explores basic concepts in criminology with pop culture references

About the Author
Nicole Rafter was Professor Emeritus of Criminology at Northeastern University. Her publications include The Crime of All Crimes: Toward a Criminology of Genocide, The Criminal Brain: Understanding Biological Theories of Crime, and, with Michelle Brown, Criminology Goes to the Movies. In 2009, Rafter was awarded the Sutherland Award by the American Society of Criminology for outstanding contributions to the discipline. Michelle Brown is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Tennessee and Fellow at the Indiana University Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions and author of The Culture of Punishment: Prison, Society, and Spectacle.

Reviews
Authors Nicole Rafter and Michelle Brown have come up with an effective way of keying theory to film...[they] have managed to present a coherent summary of the most important theories that seek to explain crime, and to do it in a readable (sometimes even amusing) way. -- Ben Pesta,California Lawyer
An interesting...book. * CHOICE *



Book Information
ISBN 9780814776520
Author Nicole Rafter
Format Paperback
Page Count 236
Imprint New York University Press
Publisher New York University Press
Weight(grams) 408g