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Titel
9
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True Crime and Evil EXAM
Description:
This course explores the concept of evil from psychological, ethical, and cultural perspectives. A central focus is the difficulty of defining evil and understanding how it is represented in popular culture, particularly in crime narratives and true crime media.
Students will examine explanations of evil behaviour from both nature and nurture perspectives, including genetic predispositions, socialisation, group dynamics, upbringing, and deviant personality traits.
The course also investigates why true crime stories continue to fascinate audiences and raises ethical questions about how such stories are told and consumed.
We will distinguish between moral evil versus natural evil and use Svendsens 4 types of evil to categorise evil deeds - demonic, instrumental, Idealistic, stupid
Central questions:
- What is evil?
- Are all humans capable of committing evil acts?
- What factors contribute to the development of a serial killer: nature (genetics), nurture (environment/socialisation), or a combination of both?
- Why are crime stories and true crime narratives so appealing?
- What ethical dilemmas arise in relation to true crime storytelling?
Materials
- Sean Spence: Bad or Mad (from Engberg-Pedersen et al., Wider Context, pp. 137–140, Gyldendal, 2012)
- Derf Backderf: My Friend Dahmer (true crime graphic memoir, 2012)
- Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes (Netflix, episode 1)
- Joseph Earp: Where Are the Victims? The Ethics of True Crime (article, 2023)
- Jim Fallon: The Mind of a Killer (TED Talk, 2009)
- Reicher and Haslam: Why Not Everyone Is a Torturer (from Engberg-Pedersen et al., Wider Context, Gyldendal, 2012)
- Bret Easton Ellis: American Psycho (1991, Chapter 17: “Killing Child at the Zoo”)
Supplementary Material
Strangers Podcast: “Lex” (2016): https://www.patreon.com/posts/lex-26963934
Key Terminology:
True crime, victim, ethics, moral vs natural evil, nature vs nurture, genetics vs environment, socialisation, upbringing, psychopath, antisocial personality disorder, Svendsen’s four types of evil (demonic, instrumental, idealistic, stupid), leadership (strong/weak or absent leadership), leadership language, tyranny, power vacuum, group behaviour/group dynamics, deviant personality
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