Criminology 3903 Hell and Damnation: Apocalypse Criminology:
Synopsis: We live in a time of
crisis, exacerbated and made intractable by social, economic, and
political problems, all with effects on personal liberty and social
control. This course looks at the unique crime problems created by
that crisis, and the consequent effect of crime control.
Overall, these problems include 
economic mass migration due to famine; globalization
and the movement of capital to offshore zones; the plutocratic greed
of the one percent, the fading of the middle class and a growing
precariat. Couple that with climate change migration brought on by
fossil fuel, refugees of toxic colonialism and environmental racism,
and there is a recipe for dislocation. As a consequence, perhaps,
terrorism and counter-terrorism increases, exacerbated by political
civil unrest and its suppression by an expanding surveillance state.
Activism of the dispossessed, and cyber counter-activism, the effect
of living in stranger-economies, and pandemics and the effect of
disinformation all feed the entropy. These and other portents are
part of a gathering storm of global crisis and discontent with
profound implications for both the practice and the study of
deviance and criminal justice. Image: Adbusters 2024
COURSE READINGS: Online electronic resources (OER) about
‘apocalyptic criminology,’ and cultural resources on
multidimensional issues, e.g. environment, politics, and
cyber/surveillance. This is an emerging area in criminology and as
yet, there is no monograph available as a textbook. However, there
are books, articles, and reports on the topics potential for the
weekly course modules. Some readings...
COURSE MODULES:
Week 01: Theorizing the apocalypse: pandemics, protest, and
precarity
Week 02: Advances in criminological theory
e.g.: ghost and gothic criminology
Week 03: Recurring themes in popular culture I: zombie flicks and
monster stories
Week 04: Recurring themes in popular culture II: comic books and
crime
Week 05: The Anthropocene, environmental collapse, and criminalizing
protest
Week 06: The crisis in racialized policing, and the legitimacy of
the criminal justice state
Week 07: Resistance to traditional policing by minorities and
activists
Week 08: The dispossessed and the economic precariat
Week 09: Cyber-crime and artificial intelligence
Week 10: The increase in terrorism and counterterrorism
Week 11: Subcultural theory and the seduction of terrorist solutions
Week 12: Social disorganization and the rise of the totalitarian
surveillance state
Week 13: Post-apocalyptic criminology.
Week 2: Advances in criminological theory e.g.:
ghost and gothic criminology
HIL search results: 105 citations, eg. “Ghost Criminology and
specters of abolition,” Emma K Russell, Crime, Media, Culture, v19
n3 (202308): 400-402; “Ghost Criminology review symposium: Editors’
response,” Michael Fiddler, Theo Kindynis, Travis Linnemann, Crime,
Media, Culture, v19 n3 (202308): 411-416; “Ghost Criminology: A
Framework for the Discipline’s Spectral Turn,” Michael Fiddler,
Travis Linnemann, Theo Kindynis, The British Journal of Criminology,
v64 n1 (20240101): 1-16 ... and google link: https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/64/1/1/7214016;
Michael Fiddler, Theo Kindynis and Travis Linnemann, (Eds), (2022)
Ghost Criminology: The Afterlife of Crime and Punishment. New York:
New York University Press.