Cultural Studies: Theory into Practice

Interested in solving a century old mystery? Posing the questions “Who was Jack the Ripper?” and “why do we still care?”, this course introduces and explores the evolving genre of True Crime through a focus of the famous serial murders of 1888. Starting with original newspaper articles from the murder spree and leading to current day internet culture, this course explores how True Crime developed in different media, including comic books, video games, movies, novels, YouTube videos, TikTok videos, and more. Each unit in this course focuses on a different media form about the murders while also exploring the social response during that publication’s period. Through this we will explore how dominant culture has used True Crime as a projection of its own moral development, leading to the exploration of the ethics of True Crime itself.  This course invites all arm chair detectives and curious bystanders to join one of the worlds oldest cold case investigations in order to understand the literary and social history of True Crime and Jack the Ripper.

**This course is repeatable for credit under different topic titles.

About Repeatable Courses

With repeatable courses, the course number (e.g., ENGL 466) is repeatable, but the topic is not. You can take as many topics as you like under the same course number, but you can only take each individual topic once. 

Questions? Please email our Undergraduate Assistant