The Fictional Dimension of the School Shooting Discourse

Ever since the 1990s, school shootings have shocked the public in their brutality, their suddenness, and their inexplicability. While film and literature have played a role in the heated debates about so-called copycat crimes, the growing body of fictionalizations of school shootings has been neglected thus far. However, in a discourse in which the boundaries between fiction and reality are increasingly blurred, this book shows how fiction shapes and structures, challenges and disrupts cultural processes of meaning-making. Hence, for a better understanding of the school shooting phenomenon, the relevance of fiction on all levels of discourse construction requires thorough analysis. This book therefore develops a new approach to the role of fiction for contemporary forms of excessive violence. By combining narrative theory with insights from sociology and other disciplines, it provides the means for apprehending and describing the relevance of fiction for contemporary discourses. Furthermore, it provides exemplary analyses of more specific functions of literary and filmic fictionalizations of school shootings between 2000 and 2016.

Author: Silke Braselmann
Publisher: de Gruyter
Published: 09/06/2021
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.82d
ISBN13: 9783110766059
ISBN10: 3110766051
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
- Literary Criticism | Semiotics & Theory

About the Author
Silke Braselmann, Justus-Liebig-University, Gießen, Germany.