Thank you for your kind words. I’m really pleased that you commented on this. It is something that I think about quite often. The last thing I ever want to do is play horrible crimes for laughs. On the other hand, this Substack is not intended to be academic, either. I hope it’s sometimes entertaining. The Sunday e-mail is meant to be relatively light, anyway. Also, I have the recurrent problem that I am almost unable to write more than about 1000 words without a joke somewhere…
'On the other hand, this Substack is not intended to be academic, either. I hope it’s sometimes entertaining.'
These two sentences describe what I think is a problem in academic writing. At university, students sometimes get marked down for the attempt to write in an entertaining way. Somehow, seriousness has became the gold standard of academic writing, and humour is widely considered 'unacademic'. However, there are a few exeptions, such as Nagel's philosophical essay 'What it's like to be a bat' or Rota's collection of mathematical essays titled 'Indescrete thoughts'.
Coming back to crime: I recently read a criminological study in which the authors attempted to apply geographical profiling methods to London locations from the Sherlock Holmes novels. They wanted to test if they could predict the authors home location(s), utilizing the mental-map-theory. I think that this was a clever and funny idea, and serious science on top of that. But the authors more or less apologized in the introduction for being unscientific, if I remember correctly. It is a pitty, isn't it?
I used the word 'author' too many times in the last paragraph. One time I mean the authors of the study, the other time I mean the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels (Doyle). Sorry for that...;)
These are terrific observations! They put me in mind of an essay I read recently by D H Mellor. It had the uninspiring title, Analytic Philosophy', but dealt in part with the thought that a really first-rate philosopher requires a sense of humour. The reason, Mellor argued, was that it is vital for a philosopher to be able to recognise the absurd. Without that ability, they can easily be drawn into absurdity themselves.
You reminded me that I had intended to write something for Crime & Psychology about humour and its uses. It's an odd topic to choose, perhaps, but perhaps absurdity is the point. I may start hashing it out this week.
I love the idea of the paper you mention, about geographical profiling and Sherlock Holmes! If you happen to come across it again, please send me a link. I'd be keen to read it.
The paper's title is 'Investigating Sherlock Holmes: Using Geographic Profiling to analyze the Novels of Arthur Conan Doyle'. It is written by Michael Stevens, Gillian Ray, Sally Faulkner & Steven Le Comber. If you search for the title in Google, you will find a link. It is open access.
They write in the abstract: 'Our analysis, although mostly for amusement, underlines the ability of GP to extract iseful information from complex data.' This sentence shows exactly what I mean. According to my interpretation, they kind of apologize for having utilized a serious scientific method for a playful endeavor. I think that they don't have to feel bad about it :)
That's great, thank you. I'll look it up. Yes, I see exactly what you mean from the abstract. Talking the piece down even though it must have had some pretty solid qualities in order to find a publisher in the first place... It's kind of you to alert me to that.
"Covering the case, one journalist wrote that ‘[Stacey] Schoeck admitted to having an affair in court’, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t mean exactly that."
...
"A fellow prisoner was told that the murder had been a Valentine’s Day gift from Leuthold to his 20 year-old mistress. ‘Oh, you really shouldn’t have.’"
With remarks like these you really manage to keep your text light and entertaining. Furthermore, your humourous approach emphasises the absurdity of certain cases very well. I imagine it to be a real challenge (for an author who writes about crime) to find the right balance between seriousness (what such horrible crimes deserve) and humour (what such crimes sometimes need).
Thank you for your kind words. I’m really pleased that you commented on this. It is something that I think about quite often. The last thing I ever want to do is play horrible crimes for laughs. On the other hand, this Substack is not intended to be academic, either. I hope it’s sometimes entertaining. The Sunday e-mail is meant to be relatively light, anyway. Also, I have the recurrent problem that I am almost unable to write more than about 1000 words without a joke somewhere…
'On the other hand, this Substack is not intended to be academic, either. I hope it’s sometimes entertaining.'
These two sentences describe what I think is a problem in academic writing. At university, students sometimes get marked down for the attempt to write in an entertaining way. Somehow, seriousness has became the gold standard of academic writing, and humour is widely considered 'unacademic'. However, there are a few exeptions, such as Nagel's philosophical essay 'What it's like to be a bat' or Rota's collection of mathematical essays titled 'Indescrete thoughts'.
Coming back to crime: I recently read a criminological study in which the authors attempted to apply geographical profiling methods to London locations from the Sherlock Holmes novels. They wanted to test if they could predict the authors home location(s), utilizing the mental-map-theory. I think that this was a clever and funny idea, and serious science on top of that. But the authors more or less apologized in the introduction for being unscientific, if I remember correctly. It is a pitty, isn't it?
I used the word 'author' too many times in the last paragraph. One time I mean the authors of the study, the other time I mean the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels (Doyle). Sorry for that...;)
These are terrific observations! They put me in mind of an essay I read recently by D H Mellor. It had the uninspiring title, Analytic Philosophy', but dealt in part with the thought that a really first-rate philosopher requires a sense of humour. The reason, Mellor argued, was that it is vital for a philosopher to be able to recognise the absurd. Without that ability, they can easily be drawn into absurdity themselves.
You reminded me that I had intended to write something for Crime & Psychology about humour and its uses. It's an odd topic to choose, perhaps, but perhaps absurdity is the point. I may start hashing it out this week.
I love the idea of the paper you mention, about geographical profiling and Sherlock Holmes! If you happen to come across it again, please send me a link. I'd be keen to read it.
The paper's title is 'Investigating Sherlock Holmes: Using Geographic Profiling to analyze the Novels of Arthur Conan Doyle'. It is written by Michael Stevens, Gillian Ray, Sally Faulkner & Steven Le Comber. If you search for the title in Google, you will find a link. It is open access.
They write in the abstract: 'Our analysis, although mostly for amusement, underlines the ability of GP to extract iseful information from complex data.' This sentence shows exactly what I mean. According to my interpretation, they kind of apologize for having utilized a serious scientific method for a playful endeavor. I think that they don't have to feel bad about it :)
That's great, thank you. I'll look it up. Yes, I see exactly what you mean from the abstract. Talking the piece down even though it must have had some pretty solid qualities in order to find a publisher in the first place... It's kind of you to alert me to that.
"Covering the case, one journalist wrote that ‘[Stacey] Schoeck admitted to having an affair in court’, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t mean exactly that."
...
"A fellow prisoner was told that the murder had been a Valentine’s Day gift from Leuthold to his 20 year-old mistress. ‘Oh, you really shouldn’t have.’"
With remarks like these you really manage to keep your text light and entertaining. Furthermore, your humourous approach emphasises the absurdity of certain cases very well. I imagine it to be a real challenge (for an author who writes about crime) to find the right balance between seriousness (what such horrible crimes deserve) and humour (what such crimes sometimes need).