Crime in Literature Sociology of Deviance and Fiction

by Ruggiero, Vincenzo

• ISBN13: 9781859844823
• ISBN10: 1859844820
• Edition: 00
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-07-17
• Publisher: VERSO

Summary

It is not a work of literary criticism, but a book written by a sociologist who reads fiction sociologically. Vincent Ruggiero's wide-ranging study takes in several authors, including Hugo, Dostoevsky, Camus, Cervantes, Mann and Zola, and addresses themes such as organized crime, the links between crime and drugs, political and administrative corruption, concepts of deviancy, and the criminal justice process.Ruggiero recounts Alessandro Manzoni's La colonna infame , drawing provocative parallels between the way the authorities in Milan dealt with the devastating plague of 1630 and the ways in which contemporary law incessantly seeks new "plague spreaders" in order to legitimize its own operations. Accessible to the general reader, Crime in Literature offers an original and thought-provoking survey that will be of interest to sociologists and criminologists as well as cultural and literary theorists.

Author Biography

Vincenzo Ruggiero is Professor of Sociology at the University of Middlesex in London. He is also a senior adviser to the United Nations on a variety of issues, including political corruption and organized crime

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Introduction	1	(8)
1 Atavism and Conflict: Dostoevsky and Camus	9	(19)
2 Organizing Crime: Cervantes, Gay and Brecht	28	(25)
3 Legal and Illegal Drugs: Baudelaire and London	53	(24)
4 Nana, Women and Crime	77	(27)
5 Baldwin and Wright: Ethnic Minorities, Hate and Crime	104	(31)
6 Moby Dick and the Crimes of the Economy	135	(21)
7 Felix Krull: The Con Man and the Irrationality of Markets	156	(22)
8 Mark Twain and the Corruption of a Town	178	(16)
9 Hugo, Mirbeau and Imprisonment	194	(22)
10 Manzoni and Legal suffering	216	(20)
References	236	(15)
Index	251