e (Professor Anne-Marie Kilday, Professor Katherine Watson and Professor David Nash) are seeking contributors for the Routledge Handbook of Jack the Ripper to write individual chapters of approximately six thousand words including references. Almost all of the chapters are complete or nearly complete (35 chapters) and we intend to send the completed manuscript to the publisher within the next twelve months. If you would like to be a contributor to this project and feel able to do so, please contact David Nash.
In offering a holistic analysis of the vast array of evidence and literature pertaining to the Whitechapel Murders committed in London’s East-End in the Autumn of 1888, this volume will offer a multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional consideration of the entirety of the most infamous of crimes and their legacy for the first time. Interest in the crimes of Jack the Ripper has barely dissipated over the numerous decades since their perpetration, but has grown significantly in recent years. The Routledge Handbook of Jack the Ripper Studies will provide a solid reference point for understanding and evaluating the significance of the murders across a range of different perspectives both past and present and through a myriad of different disciplinary frameworks and approaches. This vital resource will be split into eight thematic sections, each containing a brief, orientating introduction:
- 1) Introduction and Victorian Context
- 2) The Murders and the Victims
- 3) The Evidence and the Investigation
- 4) Press Reaction and Public Outcry
- 4) Official Responses
- 5) The Legacy of the Ripper: Media and Culture
- 6) Ripperology and Ripper Scholarship: Past, Present and Future
Providing both a rigorous, consolidated appreciation of the voluminous scholarship and setting a dynamic and expansive research agenda for the future, this handbook will be essential reading for students and scholars of history, criminology, social justice, cultural studies and gender studies.
The chapters we need contributors for are:
- Chapter 9 — Jack the Ripper: Victorian Histories. This chapter will offer detailed life histories of the women who fell victim to Jack the Ripper in the Autumn of 1888, in order to give voice to their individual experiences and to better understand why they found themselves in Whitechapel at the time of the murders. The chapter will also consider a diverse range of personal testimonies provided by individuals who were either related or acquainted with the victims in the wake of their deaths, to show the more intimate impact of each woman’s untimely and brutal demise. Ultimately, the chapter will shed light on the lives of these women who have become permanently enshrined as key actors in a morbid historical episode through no fault of their own.
- Chapter 10 — Jack the Ripper: Copycat and Legacy Killings. This chapter will look at various other instances of homicide in the post-1888 period where the crimes of Jack the Ripper have been seemingly emulated in some way. Consideration will be given to victimology, to methodology and to motive in these episodes, in order to gauge whether the Whitechapel Murders really did influence subsequent acts of fatal violence. In addition, the chapter will determine the extent to which certain murderous episodes in the more modern era were deliberately manipulated by external agencies, such as the press media, to be reminiscent of the crimes of Jack the Ripper and will analyse and explore the reasons for this.
- Chapter 24 — Social Commentary on Jack the Ripper. The significant impact of the Whitechapel Murders on Victorian society is evident from the range and depth of social commentary provided by contemporaries either engaged or interested in promoting moral and social reform. Much of this literature has tended to have been ignored by scholars however, as there is such an abundance of material to be found in Victorian newspapers. This chapter will look beyond the Victorian press media, to see what renowned Victorians thought of the events of Autumn 1888 and to identify which aspects of the case they chose to utilise in order to better articulate their cause and further their aspirations for moral welfare.
- Chapter 27 — The Politics of Jack the Ripper. This chapter will outline what the prevailing political establishment in Victorian Britain had to say about the Whitechapel Murders and the context in which they occurred. To what extent and for what reasons were the crimes of Jack the Ripper regarded as a political matter and were debated by all sides of the parliamentary divide in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords? The chapter will also consider the legacy of the events of the Autumn of 1888 and the part that politics had to play in shaping the socio-economic context of the East-End of London at the dawn of the twentieth century.
- Chapter 33 — Jack the Ripper in Television Drama. Alongside bespoke productions, from the 1973 mini series starring Michael Caine, to the four series long Whitechapel which commenced in 2009 and the five series long Ripper Street which culminated in 2016, Jack the Ripper and his crimes have featured or been referenced in a plethora of television dramatisations. Popular serial dramatisations such as The Twilight Zone, Star Trek and Doctor Who have included episodes which mention or reconstruct the Whitechapel Murders and even light entertainment programmes such as The Two Ronnies, Fantasy Island and The Simpsons have thought fit to bring aspects of the senseless crimes of a Victorian serial killer to mass audiences. This seems an odd context for historical appropriation. So why do the crimes of Jack the Ripper repeatedly offer production companies the kind of dramatised content deemed suitable for mass consumption? What does our continued fascination with these murders tell us about the creation of popular culture and our consumption of it in the modern era? And finally, does this analysis provide us with any clues as to how the popular culture of crime and criminality might develop in future decades?
- Chapter 39 — The Historiography of Jack the Ripper. This chapter will consider the vast array of academic scholarship available on the Whitechapel Murders including work conducted on the various individuals suspected of the crimes committed. Which particular aspects of the events of Autumn of 1888 have been given academic attention and why? How precisely has this scholarship differed from the array of other literature produced on the subject and what contribution has it made? As well as answering these questions, the chapter will also consider the extent of the range of disciplinary contributions and whether there are gaps in our knowledge base relating to this case that future research could fill.
We are happy to work pro-actively with authors and their other commitments.
Email: dsnash@brookes.ac.uk.
Created 28 May 2024