AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to understand some aspects of the thought of Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) and the science of criminal anthropology and criminology. Lombroso has been acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of criminology - and the introduction of scientific studies on crime and the criminal. By drawing inspiration from the tradition of Bakhtinian literary and cultural analysis, this thesis suggests that Lombroso s criminal anthropology and later criminology introduced a scientific literature into academia that allowed and still allows the reader to view the world in a specific way which can neither be reduced to form nor ideology. This thesis will argue that criminal anthropology might be understood as a form-shaping ideology which could be seen in the meta-literary framework and historical tradition of what Bakhtin has called grotesque realism. In other words, Lombroso s thought might be seen as a scientific, late nineteenth century expression of the narrative and aesthetical tradition of grotesque realism. This is a grotesque realism which in the late romantic period was given an onus on the existence of doubles and the potentially dangerous and conflicting natures of Man, society and reality. By drawing inspiration from the tradition of Bakhtinian literary and cultural analysis, this thesis suggests that Lombroso s criminal anthropology and later criminology introduced a scientific literature into academia that allowed and still allows the reader to view the world in a specific way which can neither be reduced to form nor ideology. This thesis will argue that criminal anthropology might be understood as a form-shaping ideology which could be seen in the meta-literary framework and historical tradition of what Bakhtin has called grotesque realism. In other words, Lombroso s thought might be seen as a scientific, late nineteenth century expression of the narrative and aesthetical tradition of grotesque realism. This is a grotesque realism which in the late romantic period was given an onus on the existence of doubles and the potentially dangerous and conflicting natures of Man, society and reality. This thesis suggests that his ideas are best considered dialogically, and the conceptual categories of the criminal types became ever more heterogeneous. Furthermore, that their openess of structure and ambiguity and their affinity to the gothic imagination might be said to be important aspects of their force and growing success. I have provided a brief general outline of the development of criminological historiographical narration and representations of Lombroso and his science in modern historiography. Secondly, I briefly considered the relationship between the rise of criminal anthropology, the rise of gothic literature and the similarities etween the form-shaping ideology of Lombroso s narratives to romantic grotesque realism. Thirdly, I examined Lombroso s creation myth on the born criminal and its relation to the gothic imagination. the rise of criminal anthropology, the rise of gothic…