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CONTACT: Carol Schuler, Director of Communications
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, January 06, 2003
| D&E Professor Authors Book on Popular History and Culture |
Elkins, WV---Crime and the Nation, a book by Davis & Elkins College Professor of English Dr. Peter Okun, has been published by Routledge Press as part of its Popular History and Culture series. In a work that grew out of his 1997 doctoral dissertation, Okun's book examines the curious connection between crime-fiction and prison-reform writing in the late eighteenth century-a time when the two enterprises went hand-in-hand.
"In 1790, law and literature were not the totally separate disciplines we think of them as today," says Okun. "Pamphlets, broadsides, reform tracts, novels, you name it: people read them all. The flow of ideas back and forth was just tremendous." Okun's book shows how this flow spilled over into a spirited public debate on crime and punishment that produced not only a new kind of crime fiction, but also a new kind of law, a new kind of prison, and a new approach to crime.
"The first penitentiary in the world opened, in Philadelphia, in 1790," says Okun. "Suddenly, the criminal was important. In fact, he was fascinating. He was worth displaying and reforming. Plus, he was just loaded up with symbolism: for example, the lawbreaker could be portrayed as a fiery young rebel (like America) or a corrupted villain (like Europe). All at once, crime was edifying to the community and to the nation. And the novels of the period participated enthusiastically in this." A central premise of Okun's book is that, by 1790, the criminal had become useful to a young nation whose very origins were perceived as criminal, but also necessary-and therefore redeemable. In this respect, America's love affair with crime and crime fiction is unique, and it has been enduring.
Dr. Okun is quick to point out that his own love affair with crime and punishment in literature has important implications for his teaching. "Literature is not some fluffy abstraction," he says, "it's a concrete cultural practice-it's like an artifact that shows us how people of a specific time and place thought and behaved. So, when we study literature, we're also studying history, sociology, psychology, science. These fields are not unrelated, and thinking critically about literature is the best way I know to get these connections started." A copy of Crime and the Nation can be found in the Davis and Elkins College Booth Library.
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