The Menace of Intimacy

Viewed through the lens of feminist criminology, how does the subgenre of domestic noir dramatise domestic violence through generic or subversive elements of craft? Drew Humphries asserts that feminist criminology has challenged, reframed and improved legal definitions and data collection regarding women and violence (as both victims and perpetrators), and that those changes have been registered more widely in the community via media both in journalistic choices and in the themes and features of literary genres (xi). Drawing on this conceptual framework, my research analyses representations of domestic violence in domestic noir novels with reference to feminist criminological theories, including gender critiques of Life Course Theory and the General Strain Theory of Deviance. This article presents a textual analysis of Emily Maguireâ s An Isolated Incident (2016) as a literary crime novel with domestic noir features centring on the use of domestic violence to build narrative interest and deliver dramatic tension, while also identifying the subversion of generic elements to enable thematic consideration of intersectional feminist concerns. I demonstrate that the rise in popularity of domestic noir occurs against a backdrop of an increased culture of interest in domestic violence, arguing that domestic noir narrative strategies leverage the complexities of feminist gains in criminology and criminal justice to give voice to womenâ s and girlsâ experiences of gendered violence

Art · Criminology · Domestic violence · Feminism · Feminist theory · Literature · Narrative · Poison control · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Subversion · Suicide prevention · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · Gender Studies · Homicide, Infanticide, and Child Abuse · Intimate Partner and Family Violence · Law

• Feminist Depictions of Coercive Control in ‘Domestic Noir’

  Josephine Browne•Women a Cultural Review•2024

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