The baseless fabric of this vision: an examination of the occult(uration) of crime
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Fiddler, Michael 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0695-6770
(2019)
The baseless fabric of this vision: an examination of the occult(uration) of crime.
In: 75th ASC Annual Meeting, 13-16 Nov 2019, San Francisco, USA.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Drawing upon recent criminological scholarship exploring the spectral and hauntological, this paper sets out a framework for capturing the occulturated elements of crime and punishment. It looks to that which has been redacted and removed by the powerful, whilst also seeking to highlight the right to opacity for the powerless.
The paper’s point of departure is a smoke-filled crypt in an abandoned Parisian convent in 1789. It is here that Etienne-Gaspard Robertson presented the phantasmagoria. This becomes a central metaphor for our discussion, operating as it did ‘in tension…[Taking] on the weight of modern dialectics of truth and illusion’ (Gunning, 2004: 1). This tension leads us first to Benjamin’s notion of the ‘optical unconscious’ and then to flashes of radioactive isotopes in photographic emulsion, as the paper explores scopic regimes that produce invisibilities and elisions. It is across these differing orders of (in)visibility that we set out a framework for an occult criminology. Drawing upon notions of hauntology, spectrality and the (in)visible, we see how the traumatic effects of crime persist. Yet, whilst the Derridean specter speaks of past traumas, it also hints at future resolutions, as well as the applications of a criminology of the occulturated.
| Item Type: | Conference or Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Hauntology, visual criminology, dialectical image |
| Subjects: | K Law > K Law (General) |
| Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group: | Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences > Crime, Law & (In)Security Research Group (CLS) Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences > School of Law & Criminology (LAC) |
| Related URLs: | |
| Last Modified: | 10 Dec 2019 15:23 |
| URI: | http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/26302 |
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