Dr Michael Fiddler is an Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Greenwich. His current research is focused upon spaces associated with crime and punishments.
Drawing upon recent criminological scholarship examining spectrality, as well as Jacques Derrida’... more Drawing upon recent criminological scholarship examining spectrality, as well as Jacques Derrida’s notion of hauntology, this article sets out a framework to explore harms experienced as ‘out of joint’. We propose a new sub-discipline of ‘ghost criminology’ as a means to explore and reckon with these afterlives. We identify three strands of the (in)visible, the (in)corporeal and dead space with which to capture phenomena hovering between presence and absence. In doing so, we provide examples of justice being achieved within this sense of time being ‘off its hinges’. A ‘ghost criminology’ provides a means of listening to the voices of the discipline’s dead, as well as the ghosts of its future.
Drawing upon Jacques Derrida’s notion of hauntology and the nascent field of ghost criminology, t... more Drawing upon Jacques Derrida’s notion of hauntology and the nascent field of ghost criminology, this article explores the spectrality of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon. This frames the never constructed building as an example of ‘phantom architecture’. It can be seen as both haunted and haunting. Here, we use Beaumont’s ‘architectural parallax’ to examine this building that is ‘out-of-joint’. It is at once of the past, yet profoundly present, as well as prefiguring the future. We turn first to the spectral presence of an abandoned building designed by Samuel Bentham, Jeremy’s brother. We see how Samuel’s experiences in Krichev in the 1780s left traces in the prison design that the brothers would work upon. This saw them develop an architecture that would hold in its centre a surveillant ‘entity’ that would haunt those being observed at the building’s periphery. Having explored the ‘no longer’, we turn to the ‘not yet’ to see how the panopticon has come to inspirit thought and architectural practice. In tracing these varied spectralities, both within and of the panopticon, we can reveal its enduring impact on the criminological imagination. The article is OPEN ACCESS and freely available here: https://doi.org/10.1177/26326663221101571
Drawing upon recent criminological scholarship examining spectrality, this paper set out a haunto... more Drawing upon recent criminological scholarship examining spectrality, this paper set out a hauntological framework for exploring traumas of the past and future being inflicted upon the living in the present. Given the discipline’s spectral turn, Dr Fiddler showed that we can begin to capture those figures, groups and concepts that have been rendered invisible, as well as attend to harms that have persistent afterlives.
The intention here was to offer an introduction to what is called Ghost Criminology. This is a sub-discipline that seeks to capture those cultural forces that reveal our wavering present, as well as those that hover between presence and absence. It is a space to explore harms that are experienced as ‘out of joint’, and how they either return or presage future harm. It is a project that is drawn, then, toward Avery Gordon’s framing of haunting as revealing “repressed or unresolved social violences” (Radway, 2008: ix).
The presentation explored these ideas of presence and absence, debt and inheritance, visibility and invisibility by focusing upon two examples of the spectral. We first looked at those visual systems that entwined the invisible and the criminological imagination: the optogram and spirit photography. This lead to us ‘conjuring’ a spectral image that seeks to capture the unseen and ‘out-of joint’ effects of ecological harms and showed that we can generate a hauntological image that allows us to conceptualize harms that exist across a collapsed past, present and future. This is an image that can help us to understand the persistent impact of the “no longer”, as well as the harms of the “not yet” (Fisher, 2014).
Secondly, Dr Fiddler turned to the phantom architecture of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. This was to be a building of incorporeal gazes and voices. Using analyses of both Bentham’s architectural drawings and letters, the paper concluded by setting out a framework for understanding the ‘haunted’ and ‘haunting’ nature of this inspirited building.
Criminology has long sought to illuminate the lived experience of those at the margins. More
rece... more Criminology has long sought to illuminate the lived experience of those at the margins. More recently, there has been a turn towards the spatial in the discipline. This article sets out an analytical framework that synthesizes spatial theory with hauntology. We demonstrate how a given space’s violent histories can become embedded in the texts that constitute it and the language that describes it. The art installation Die Familie Schneider is used as an example of how the incorporation of social trauma can lead to the formation of a spatial ‘crypt’. Cracking open this ‘crypt’ allows us to draw out Derrida’s notion of the spectre within the context of a ‘haunted’ city space.
This is a special edition of the Prison Service Journal that is focusing upon 'the arts in prison... more This is a special edition of the Prison Service Journal that is focusing upon 'the arts in prison'. My contributions include the editorial comment and an interview with the former artist-in-residence at HMP Grendon, Edmund Clark.
Emerging from the Women in Prison genre of exploitation cinema, Nazisploitation – and the specifi... more Emerging from the Women in Prison genre of exploitation cinema, Nazisploitation – and the specifically Italian sadiconazista filone – of the late 1960s and 1970s utilized the backdrop of the concentration camps to tell eroticized stories of genocidal violence. Our point of departure here is an evaluation of their co-mingling of voyeuristic spectacle with claims to verisimilitude. In this paper, we will unpack how this produces transgressive memory. Drawing upon the notion of ‘prosthetic memory’, we set out how this genre blurs the dichotomies of structural-functionalist and ideological-intentionalist frameworks of explanation for the Holocaust. As such, a re-evaluation of their lurid excesses allows us to examine the interplay between trauma and affect in disrupting ‘hegemonic’ memory.
This piece unpacks how Holocaust-related films – ranging from Nazisploitation cinema (Love Camp 7... more This piece unpacks how Holocaust-related films – ranging from Nazisploitation cinema (Love Camp 7, 1968; Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, 1975) through to ‘art house’ (The Night Porter, 1974) and mainstream representations (Schindler’s List, 1994) – eroticize Nazi atrocities and violence against women. Following on from Caldwell’s analysis of gender ‘realness’ we argue that there has been a tendency for such films to present masculinity as the dominant power-simulacra. Using Schweickart’s (1986) androcentric reading strategy and Mulvey’s (1992) scopophilic male gaze, we ask whether gender hierarchies and inequalities are reproduced in these cinematic representations.
This piece unpacks how Holocaust-related films – ranging from Nazisploitation cinema (Love Camp 7... more This piece unpacks how Holocaust-related films – ranging from Nazisploitation cinema (Love Camp 7, 1968; Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, 1975) through to ‘art house’ (The Night Porter, 1974) and mainstream representations (Schindler’s List, 1994) – eroticize Nazi atrocities and violence against women. Following on from Caldwell’s analysis of gender ‘realness’ we argue that there has been a tendency for such films to present masculinity as the dominant power-simulacra. Using Schweickart’s (1986) androcentric reading strategy and Mulvey’s (1992) scopophilic male gaze, we ask whether gender hierarchies and inequalities are reproduced in these cinematic representations.
The home is central to the western imaginary. It is of foundational importance to the shaping of ... more The home is central to the western imaginary. It is of foundational importance to the shaping of identity. It is where we begin to construct the story of ourselves and where we first learn to navigate space. Yet, it is also a site of shadows and fear, of hidden desires and ambivalence. Within the cinematic home invasion genre, this is heightened by the presence of an antagonistic Other. They render all categorically interstitial. As with the Lacanian notion of extimité, the invading Other confuses interior and exterior boundaries. In Michael Haneke’s (1997 original and 2007 remake) Funny Games, this is further problematized by the lead antagonist’s movement between the diegetic world and that of the viewer. This article examines this fourth wall breaking and unpacks how the audience’s consumption of violent media is critiqued as the lines between the home of the film and that of the viewing audience become blurred.
References De Beaumont G and de Tocqueville A (1833/1979) On the penitentiary system in the Unite... more References De Beaumont G and de Tocqueville A (1833/1979) On the penitentiary system in the United States and its application in France. Southern Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. Dumm TL (1987) Democracy and punishment: disciplinary origins of the United ...
This is an interview conducted as part of a special edition of the PSJ focusing on 'Closing and O... more This is an interview conducted as part of a special edition of the PSJ focusing on 'Closing and Opening Prisons'.
This article dredges the ‘reservoirs of dogma’ and ‘symbolic lagoons of social fears’ to locate t... more This article dredges the ‘reservoirs of dogma’ and ‘symbolic lagoons of social fears’ to locate the ‘home invasion’ film genre within its diachronic and synchronic contexts. As such, we will first situate these films as part of the historical tradition of Gothic literature. This allows us to unpack the ways in which the depictions of the ‘home’ and ‘homeliness’ in Gothic literature and the ‘home invasion’ genre problematise constructions of identity and category formation. Secondly, exploring the genre in its contemporaneous socio-cultural setting allows us to see how particular social traumas are manifest in popular culture. These dimensions are explored by focusing on three key examples and their subsequent remakes: The Last House on the Left, Straw Dogs and Funny Games.
An interview conduted with Catherine Yeatman - the project architect for a large part of the Oxfo... more An interview conduted with Catherine Yeatman - the project architect for a large part of the Oxford Castle development which includes the former prison buildings now occupied by Mal Maison.
In relation to the early American penal experiment, we might imagine an
unbroken line of develop... more In relation to the early American penal experiment, we might imagine an
unbroken line of development that takes us from William Penn’s code of 1682 through to the monumental structures of the Jacksonian era. These were to be sources of civic pride and would locate the penitentiary as a utopic site (Rothman 1990). However, at each stage of this evolution of imprisonment, there was a Gothic undercurrent. In analysing these early penitentiaries, their architecture and the popular literature relating to them, we can begin to unpack the ongoing construction of the ‘place myth’ of the prison within
the penal imagination.
Drawing upon recent criminological scholarship examining spectrality, as well as Jacques Derrida’... more Drawing upon recent criminological scholarship examining spectrality, as well as Jacques Derrida’s notion of hauntology, this article sets out a framework to explore harms experienced as ‘out of joint’. We propose a new sub-discipline of ‘ghost criminology’ as a means to explore and reckon with these afterlives. We identify three strands of the (in)visible, the (in)corporeal and dead space with which to capture phenomena hovering between presence and absence. In doing so, we provide examples of justice being achieved within this sense of time being ‘off its hinges’. A ‘ghost criminology’ provides a means of listening to the voices of the discipline’s dead, as well as the ghosts of its future.
Drawing upon Jacques Derrida’s notion of hauntology and the nascent field of ghost criminology, t... more Drawing upon Jacques Derrida’s notion of hauntology and the nascent field of ghost criminology, this article explores the spectrality of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon. This frames the never constructed building as an example of ‘phantom architecture’. It can be seen as both haunted and haunting. Here, we use Beaumont’s ‘architectural parallax’ to examine this building that is ‘out-of-joint’. It is at once of the past, yet profoundly present, as well as prefiguring the future. We turn first to the spectral presence of an abandoned building designed by Samuel Bentham, Jeremy’s brother. We see how Samuel’s experiences in Krichev in the 1780s left traces in the prison design that the brothers would work upon. This saw them develop an architecture that would hold in its centre a surveillant ‘entity’ that would haunt those being observed at the building’s periphery. Having explored the ‘no longer’, we turn to the ‘not yet’ to see how the panopticon has come to inspirit thought and architectural practice. In tracing these varied spectralities, both within and of the panopticon, we can reveal its enduring impact on the criminological imagination. The article is OPEN ACCESS and freely available here: https://doi.org/10.1177/26326663221101571
Drawing upon recent criminological scholarship examining spectrality, this paper set out a haunto... more Drawing upon recent criminological scholarship examining spectrality, this paper set out a hauntological framework for exploring traumas of the past and future being inflicted upon the living in the present. Given the discipline’s spectral turn, Dr Fiddler showed that we can begin to capture those figures, groups and concepts that have been rendered invisible, as well as attend to harms that have persistent afterlives.
The intention here was to offer an introduction to what is called Ghost Criminology. This is a sub-discipline that seeks to capture those cultural forces that reveal our wavering present, as well as those that hover between presence and absence. It is a space to explore harms that are experienced as ‘out of joint’, and how they either return or presage future harm. It is a project that is drawn, then, toward Avery Gordon’s framing of haunting as revealing “repressed or unresolved social violences” (Radway, 2008: ix).
The presentation explored these ideas of presence and absence, debt and inheritance, visibility and invisibility by focusing upon two examples of the spectral. We first looked at those visual systems that entwined the invisible and the criminological imagination: the optogram and spirit photography. This lead to us ‘conjuring’ a spectral image that seeks to capture the unseen and ‘out-of joint’ effects of ecological harms and showed that we can generate a hauntological image that allows us to conceptualize harms that exist across a collapsed past, present and future. This is an image that can help us to understand the persistent impact of the “no longer”, as well as the harms of the “not yet” (Fisher, 2014).
Secondly, Dr Fiddler turned to the phantom architecture of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. This was to be a building of incorporeal gazes and voices. Using analyses of both Bentham’s architectural drawings and letters, the paper concluded by setting out a framework for understanding the ‘haunted’ and ‘haunting’ nature of this inspirited building.
Criminology has long sought to illuminate the lived experience of those at the margins. More
rece... more Criminology has long sought to illuminate the lived experience of those at the margins. More recently, there has been a turn towards the spatial in the discipline. This article sets out an analytical framework that synthesizes spatial theory with hauntology. We demonstrate how a given space’s violent histories can become embedded in the texts that constitute it and the language that describes it. The art installation Die Familie Schneider is used as an example of how the incorporation of social trauma can lead to the formation of a spatial ‘crypt’. Cracking open this ‘crypt’ allows us to draw out Derrida’s notion of the spectre within the context of a ‘haunted’ city space.
This is a special edition of the Prison Service Journal that is focusing upon 'the arts in prison... more This is a special edition of the Prison Service Journal that is focusing upon 'the arts in prison'. My contributions include the editorial comment and an interview with the former artist-in-residence at HMP Grendon, Edmund Clark.
Emerging from the Women in Prison genre of exploitation cinema, Nazisploitation – and the specifi... more Emerging from the Women in Prison genre of exploitation cinema, Nazisploitation – and the specifically Italian sadiconazista filone – of the late 1960s and 1970s utilized the backdrop of the concentration camps to tell eroticized stories of genocidal violence. Our point of departure here is an evaluation of their co-mingling of voyeuristic spectacle with claims to verisimilitude. In this paper, we will unpack how this produces transgressive memory. Drawing upon the notion of ‘prosthetic memory’, we set out how this genre blurs the dichotomies of structural-functionalist and ideological-intentionalist frameworks of explanation for the Holocaust. As such, a re-evaluation of their lurid excesses allows us to examine the interplay between trauma and affect in disrupting ‘hegemonic’ memory.
This piece unpacks how Holocaust-related films – ranging from Nazisploitation cinema (Love Camp 7... more This piece unpacks how Holocaust-related films – ranging from Nazisploitation cinema (Love Camp 7, 1968; Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, 1975) through to ‘art house’ (The Night Porter, 1974) and mainstream representations (Schindler’s List, 1994) – eroticize Nazi atrocities and violence against women. Following on from Caldwell’s analysis of gender ‘realness’ we argue that there has been a tendency for such films to present masculinity as the dominant power-simulacra. Using Schweickart’s (1986) androcentric reading strategy and Mulvey’s (1992) scopophilic male gaze, we ask whether gender hierarchies and inequalities are reproduced in these cinematic representations.
This piece unpacks how Holocaust-related films – ranging from Nazisploitation cinema (Love Camp 7... more This piece unpacks how Holocaust-related films – ranging from Nazisploitation cinema (Love Camp 7, 1968; Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, 1975) through to ‘art house’ (The Night Porter, 1974) and mainstream representations (Schindler’s List, 1994) – eroticize Nazi atrocities and violence against women. Following on from Caldwell’s analysis of gender ‘realness’ we argue that there has been a tendency for such films to present masculinity as the dominant power-simulacra. Using Schweickart’s (1986) androcentric reading strategy and Mulvey’s (1992) scopophilic male gaze, we ask whether gender hierarchies and inequalities are reproduced in these cinematic representations.
The home is central to the western imaginary. It is of foundational importance to the shaping of ... more The home is central to the western imaginary. It is of foundational importance to the shaping of identity. It is where we begin to construct the story of ourselves and where we first learn to navigate space. Yet, it is also a site of shadows and fear, of hidden desires and ambivalence. Within the cinematic home invasion genre, this is heightened by the presence of an antagonistic Other. They render all categorically interstitial. As with the Lacanian notion of extimité, the invading Other confuses interior and exterior boundaries. In Michael Haneke’s (1997 original and 2007 remake) Funny Games, this is further problematized by the lead antagonist’s movement between the diegetic world and that of the viewer. This article examines this fourth wall breaking and unpacks how the audience’s consumption of violent media is critiqued as the lines between the home of the film and that of the viewing audience become blurred.
References De Beaumont G and de Tocqueville A (1833/1979) On the penitentiary system in the Unite... more References De Beaumont G and de Tocqueville A (1833/1979) On the penitentiary system in the United States and its application in France. Southern Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. Dumm TL (1987) Democracy and punishment: disciplinary origins of the United ...
This is an interview conducted as part of a special edition of the PSJ focusing on 'Closing and O... more This is an interview conducted as part of a special edition of the PSJ focusing on 'Closing and Opening Prisons'.
This article dredges the ‘reservoirs of dogma’ and ‘symbolic lagoons of social fears’ to locate t... more This article dredges the ‘reservoirs of dogma’ and ‘symbolic lagoons of social fears’ to locate the ‘home invasion’ film genre within its diachronic and synchronic contexts. As such, we will first situate these films as part of the historical tradition of Gothic literature. This allows us to unpack the ways in which the depictions of the ‘home’ and ‘homeliness’ in Gothic literature and the ‘home invasion’ genre problematise constructions of identity and category formation. Secondly, exploring the genre in its contemporaneous socio-cultural setting allows us to see how particular social traumas are manifest in popular culture. These dimensions are explored by focusing on three key examples and their subsequent remakes: The Last House on the Left, Straw Dogs and Funny Games.
An interview conduted with Catherine Yeatman - the project architect for a large part of the Oxfo... more An interview conduted with Catherine Yeatman - the project architect for a large part of the Oxford Castle development which includes the former prison buildings now occupied by Mal Maison.
In relation to the early American penal experiment, we might imagine an
unbroken line of develop... more In relation to the early American penal experiment, we might imagine an
unbroken line of development that takes us from William Penn’s code of 1682 through to the monumental structures of the Jacksonian era. These were to be sources of civic pride and would locate the penitentiary as a utopic site (Rothman 1990). However, at each stage of this evolution of imprisonment, there was a Gothic undercurrent. In analysing these early penitentiaries, their architecture and the popular literature relating to them, we can begin to unpack the ongoing construction of the ‘place myth’ of the prison within
the penal imagination.
American Society of Criminology conference, November, New Orleans., 2016
Emerging from the ‘Women in Prison’ genre of exploitation cinema, ‘Nazisploitation’ or ‘sadiconaz... more Emerging from the ‘Women in Prison’ genre of exploitation cinema, ‘Nazisploitation’ or ‘sadiconazista’ films of the late 1960s and 1970s utilized the backdrop of the Nazi concentration camps to tell eroticized stories of genocidal violence. In transforming human victimization into voyeuristic spectacle - whilst making simultaneous claims to verisimilitude - these films problematized notions of representation and entertainment. In this paper, we will unpack how the space of the concentration camp within this sub-genre is framed so as to privilege the scopophilic male gaze and the “to-be-looked-at-ness” of the female body (Mulvey, 1992). Broadening our focus to the contemporaneous ‘art house’ depictions of fascistic violence in Salò (1976) and The Night Porter (1974), we see how similar tropes are used to prompt ‘unpleasure’ in the audience. In attempting to represent the unrepresentable, we consider whether each of these films – be they ‘high’ art or ‘low’ culture - simply reproduce Schweickart’s (1986) notion of androcentric reading strategies.
Drawing upon recent criminological scholarship examining spectrality, this paper sets out a haunt... more Drawing upon recent criminological scholarship examining spectrality, this paper sets out a hauntological framework for exploring traumas of the past and future being inflicted upon the living in the present. Given the discipline’s spectral turn, we can begin to capture those figures, groups and concepts that have been rendered invisible, as well as attend to harms that have persistent afterlives.
Our point of departure is Trevor Paglen’s (2015) “Trinity Cube”. This sculpture is part of an unseen exhibit located in the Fukushima exclusion zone and will not be accessible until restrictions around the site of the 2011 nuclear disaster are lifted. Trinity Cube allows us to consider (in)visible harms that are experienced when time is perceived as “out of joint”. In order to unpack this, we must look back towards early visual systems used to capture an imagined criminal Other. Optograms and composite portraiture both utilised the language or techniques of spirit photography to generate their spectral imagery. Here, we offer an alternative means of conjuring a spectral criminological image. By extending Walter Benjamin’s dialectical image, we can generate a hauntological image that allows us to conceptualize harms that exist across a collapsed past, present and future. This is a “spectral” image that can help us to understand the persistent impact of the “no longer”, as well as the harms of the “not yet”.
The haunting effects of crime, violence, and death in our history, memory, and media spaces
From... more The haunting effects of crime, violence, and death in our history, memory, and media spaces
From Abu Ghraib and Holocaust death camps to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and slave plantations, spaces where violent crimes have occurred can often become forever changed, or “haunted,” in the public imagination. In this volume, Michael Fiddler, Travis Linnemann, and Theo Kindynis bring together an interdisciplinary group of distinguished scholars to study this phenomenon, exploring the origins, theory, and methodology of ghost criminology.
Featuring Jeff Ferrell, Michelle Brown, Eamon Carrabine, and other prominent scholars, Ghost Criminology takes us inside spaces where the worst crimes have imprinted themselves on our history, memory, and media spaces. Contributors explore a wide range of these hauntological topics from a criminological perspective, including the excavation of graffiti in the London underground, the phantom of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, NC, during the 2017 riots, and the ghostly evidentiary traces of crime in motel rooms.
Ultimately, Fiddler, Kindynis, and Linnemann offer ghost criminology as another way of seeing, and better understanding, the lingering impact of violence, oppression, and history in today’s world. Ghost Criminology curates cutting-edge research to break exciting new terrain.
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The intention here was to offer an introduction to what is called Ghost Criminology. This is a sub-discipline that seeks to capture those cultural forces that reveal our wavering present, as well as those that hover between presence and absence. It is a space to explore harms that are experienced as ‘out of joint’, and how they either return or presage future harm. It is a project that is drawn, then, toward Avery Gordon’s framing of haunting as revealing “repressed or unresolved social violences” (Radway, 2008: ix).
The presentation explored these ideas of presence and absence, debt and inheritance, visibility and invisibility by focusing upon two examples of the spectral. We first looked at those visual systems that entwined the invisible and the criminological imagination: the optogram and spirit photography. This lead to us ‘conjuring’ a spectral image that seeks to capture the unseen and ‘out-of joint’ effects of ecological harms and showed that we can generate a hauntological image that allows us to conceptualize harms that exist across a collapsed past, present and future. This is an image that can help us to understand the persistent impact of the “no longer”, as well as the harms of the “not yet” (Fisher, 2014).
Secondly, Dr Fiddler turned to the phantom architecture of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. This was to be a building of incorporeal gazes and voices. Using analyses of both Bentham’s architectural drawings and letters, the paper concluded by setting out a framework for understanding the ‘haunted’ and ‘haunting’ nature of this inspirited building.
recently, there has been a turn towards the spatial in the discipline. This article sets out an analytical
framework that synthesizes spatial theory with hauntology. We demonstrate how a given space’s
violent histories can become embedded in the texts that constitute it and the language that describes
it. The art installation Die Familie Schneider is used as an example of how the incorporation of
social trauma can lead to the formation of a spatial ‘crypt’. Cracking open this ‘crypt’ allows us to
draw out Derrida’s notion of the spectre within the context of a ‘haunted’ city space.
the late 1960s and 1970s utilized the backdrop of the concentration camps to tell eroticized stories of genocidal violence. Our point of departure here is an evaluation of their co-mingling of voyeuristic
spectacle with claims to verisimilitude. In this paper, we will unpack how this produces transgressive memory. Drawing upon the notion of ‘prosthetic memory’, we set out how this genre blurs the dichotomies of structural-functionalist and ideological-intentionalist frameworks
of explanation for the Holocaust. As such, a re-evaluation of their lurid excesses allows us to examine the interplay between trauma and affect in disrupting ‘hegemonic’ memory.
unbroken line of development that takes us from William Penn’s code of 1682 through to the monumental structures of the Jacksonian era. These were to be sources of civic pride and would locate the penitentiary as a utopic site (Rothman 1990). However, at each stage of this evolution of imprisonment, there was a Gothic undercurrent. In analysing these early penitentiaries, their architecture and the popular literature relating to them, we can begin to unpack the ongoing construction of the ‘place myth’ of the prison within
the penal imagination.
The intention here was to offer an introduction to what is called Ghost Criminology. This is a sub-discipline that seeks to capture those cultural forces that reveal our wavering present, as well as those that hover between presence and absence. It is a space to explore harms that are experienced as ‘out of joint’, and how they either return or presage future harm. It is a project that is drawn, then, toward Avery Gordon’s framing of haunting as revealing “repressed or unresolved social violences” (Radway, 2008: ix).
The presentation explored these ideas of presence and absence, debt and inheritance, visibility and invisibility by focusing upon two examples of the spectral. We first looked at those visual systems that entwined the invisible and the criminological imagination: the optogram and spirit photography. This lead to us ‘conjuring’ a spectral image that seeks to capture the unseen and ‘out-of joint’ effects of ecological harms and showed that we can generate a hauntological image that allows us to conceptualize harms that exist across a collapsed past, present and future. This is an image that can help us to understand the persistent impact of the “no longer”, as well as the harms of the “not yet” (Fisher, 2014).
Secondly, Dr Fiddler turned to the phantom architecture of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. This was to be a building of incorporeal gazes and voices. Using analyses of both Bentham’s architectural drawings and letters, the paper concluded by setting out a framework for understanding the ‘haunted’ and ‘haunting’ nature of this inspirited building.
recently, there has been a turn towards the spatial in the discipline. This article sets out an analytical
framework that synthesizes spatial theory with hauntology. We demonstrate how a given space’s
violent histories can become embedded in the texts that constitute it and the language that describes
it. The art installation Die Familie Schneider is used as an example of how the incorporation of
social trauma can lead to the formation of a spatial ‘crypt’. Cracking open this ‘crypt’ allows us to
draw out Derrida’s notion of the spectre within the context of a ‘haunted’ city space.
the late 1960s and 1970s utilized the backdrop of the concentration camps to tell eroticized stories of genocidal violence. Our point of departure here is an evaluation of their co-mingling of voyeuristic
spectacle with claims to verisimilitude. In this paper, we will unpack how this produces transgressive memory. Drawing upon the notion of ‘prosthetic memory’, we set out how this genre blurs the dichotomies of structural-functionalist and ideological-intentionalist frameworks
of explanation for the Holocaust. As such, a re-evaluation of their lurid excesses allows us to examine the interplay between trauma and affect in disrupting ‘hegemonic’ memory.
unbroken line of development that takes us from William Penn’s code of 1682 through to the monumental structures of the Jacksonian era. These were to be sources of civic pride and would locate the penitentiary as a utopic site (Rothman 1990). However, at each stage of this evolution of imprisonment, there was a Gothic undercurrent. In analysing these early penitentiaries, their architecture and the popular literature relating to them, we can begin to unpack the ongoing construction of the ‘place myth’ of the prison within
the penal imagination.
Our point of departure is Trevor Paglen’s (2015) “Trinity Cube”. This sculpture is part of an unseen exhibit located in the Fukushima exclusion zone and will not be accessible until restrictions around the site of the 2011 nuclear disaster are lifted. Trinity Cube allows us to consider (in)visible harms that are experienced when time is perceived as “out of joint”. In order to unpack this, we must look back towards early visual systems used to capture an imagined criminal Other. Optograms and composite portraiture both utilised the language or techniques of spirit photography to generate their spectral imagery. Here, we offer an alternative means of conjuring a spectral criminological image. By extending Walter Benjamin’s dialectical image, we can generate a hauntological image that allows us to conceptualize harms that exist across a collapsed past, present and future. This is a “spectral” image that can help us to understand the persistent impact of the “no longer”, as well as the harms of the “not yet”.
From Abu Ghraib and Holocaust death camps to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and slave plantations, spaces where violent crimes have occurred can often become forever changed, or “haunted,” in the public imagination. In this volume, Michael Fiddler, Travis Linnemann, and Theo Kindynis bring together an interdisciplinary group of distinguished scholars to study this phenomenon, exploring the origins, theory, and methodology of ghost criminology.
Featuring Jeff Ferrell, Michelle Brown, Eamon Carrabine, and other prominent scholars, Ghost Criminology takes us inside spaces where the worst crimes have imprinted themselves on our history, memory, and media spaces. Contributors explore a wide range of these hauntological topics from a criminological perspective, including the excavation of graffiti in the London underground, the phantom of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, NC, during the 2017 riots, and the ghostly evidentiary traces of crime in motel rooms.
Ultimately, Fiddler, Kindynis, and Linnemann offer ghost criminology as another way of seeing, and better understanding, the lingering impact of violence, oppression, and history in today’s world. Ghost Criminology curates cutting-edge research to break exciting new terrain.