Departement du criminologie | Criminology Department
Criminological Theories II
CRM 3301B
Deborah Landry, PhD
Office Hours:
FSS 13031
Wednesdays 1-3pm
Fridays 12:30 -2pm
Lectures
Wednesday 4-7pm
E-Mail: dlandry@uottawa.ca
VNR 1095
www.uottawa.ca/maps
Course Description:
This course is a survey of contemporary criminological theories from 1960 to the present, with a focus on
symbolic interactionism, critical criminology, as well as embodied and cultural approaches to interrogating
deviance and resistance. The course is structured around understanding ‘crime’ and 'resistance’ as meaningful
human activities that we will look for on the streets we walk each day. I invite students to actively engage with
the course materials in order to critically examine contemporary wisdom surrounding the socio-politics of crime
and criminal justice, and contend with the contemporary question: “What is the ‘reality’ of crime, and who
determines it” (Ferrell, Hayward, & Young, 2008: 21)? Come for the theory, stay for the amazing end of the
year presentations!
Required Texts:
Ferrell, Hayward & Young (2008). ‘Cultural Criminology’ Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Text can be purchased at Octopus Books (251 Bank Street) http://octopusbooks.org
Students may also want to check Amazon.com for deals: http://www.amazon.ca/Qualitative-ResearchAction-Canadian-Primer/dp/0195439198
FREE E-Version through Uottawa library (search book, follow links)
Virtual Campus Course Page: https://maestro.uottawa.ca/indexEN.asp
All journal articles are available through the university library in the searchable e-journal database.
http://sfx.scholarsportal.info/ottawa/azlist or on Virtual Campus where indicated.
Course Evaluation:




Case Study Proposal: worth 25%
Crime Consumption & City Assignment: worth 20%
In Class Presentation: worth 15% (Attendance is Mandatory)
Case Study (12-15 page paper): worth 40%
Course Policies
E-Mail: All students are responsible for checking their uottawa.ca accounts regularly for course
information/communication. Due to privacy issues, electronic communication to me must from uottawa.ca
accounts, as opposed to Hotmail, Gmail, for example.
PLEASE NOTE: This course is designed so that students regularly work on a final project, Medical notes must
accompany work that demonstrates the student has been working on the research project up until the date the
medical note indicates student was unable to work.
Special Needs: Students with special needs are encouraged to contact me, so that I may have the opportunity to
facilitate a positive learning experience for all students. Further, these students can seek out the assistance of
Student Academic Success Services:
University Centre, room 339
Phone: (613) 562-5976
TTY Phone: (613) 562-5214
Fax: (613) 562-5159
Email: adapt@uottawa.ca
Academic Fraud /Plagiarism:
Academic fraud is an act committed by a student to distort the marking of assignments, tests, examinations and
other forms of academic evaluation. Such an act is an extremely serious matter and consequently will be dealt
with accordingly. In past years, the majority of students found guilty of academic fraud were given an ‘F’ for
the course and had additional credits (between 3 and 12) added to their program requirements.
Within this context, students should note that all work submitted must be their own words and context, and not
written (in part or in whole) by another person (or in conjunction with a classmate) or taken from the internet.
All material quoted or paraphrased from any source and in any form (assignments or tests/exams) must be
properly cited, including bibliographical references.
For more information on that which constitutes academic fraud as well as strategies for avoiding this act,
students are encouraged to consult the University of Ottawa website at
www.uottawa.ca/plagiarism.pdfhttp://www.uottawa.plagiarism.pdf. For more information on that which
constitutes academic fraud as well as strategies for avoiding this act, students are encouraged to consult the
University of Ottawa website at www.uottawa.ca/plagiarism.pdfhttp://www.uottawa.plagiarism.pdf or the
Faculty of Social Sciences guide to avoiding plagiarism at www.socialsciences.uottawa.ca/pdf/plagiarism2.pdf.
2
Course Outline:
Week 1: Jan 9: Introduction and Pedagogical Orientation
Chapter 1: Cultural Criminology
Week 2: Jan 16: “The Revolution will not go better with Coke”
Chapter 2: The Gathering Storm
In Class Movie Berkley in the 1960s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ouWpfJv18k
Week 3: Jan 23: Vocabulary of Motives: Communicating Identity & Social Order
C. Wright Mills. Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive. American Sociological Review (December
1940), 5 (6), pg. 904-913 [Search U of O E-Journals]
Matza, D. & Sykes, G. 1961. ‘Juvenile delinquency and subterranean values,’ American Sociological
Review 26: 712-19. [Search U of O E-Journals]
Week 4: Jan 30: New Modernity & Positivist Criminology
Chapter 3: The Storm Breaks (pp.56-84)
Lasch, C (1979) The Narcissistic Personality of Our Time [On Reserve – U of O Library]
Week 5: Feb 6: Edgework & Emotion
Proposal for Case Study worth 25%
Lyng, Stephen (1990). "Edgework: A social psychological analysis of voluntary risk taking". American
Journal of Sociology 95 (4): 851–886 [Search U of O E-Journals]
Veblin, T (19XX) Chapter 4: Conspicuous Consumption.In Theory of the Leisure Class. (p. 47-68)
http://www.wilsonsd.org/cms/lib01/PA01000270/Centricity/Domain/185/Theory-Leisure-Class.pdf
In Class Video: Garett (2010) Urban Explorers: Quests for Myth, Mystery and Meaning.Geography
Compass.this is a Video Journal Article.
Week 6: Feb 13: Crime, Consumption & the City
Students are expected to make time to visit the Carleton County Gaol and consider the experience in relation
to the readings for this week especially. Students will submit a reflexive critical paper about their
experience, Due Week 8
Walby, K. & Piche, J. (2011). The polysemy of punishment memorialization: Dark tourism and Ontario’s
penal history museums. Punishment & Society. 13(4) 451–472 [Search U of O E-Journals]
Cohen (1979). The Punitive City. Notes on the Dispersal of Society. Contemporary Crises. October
1979, Volume 3, Issue 4, pp 339-363 [Search U of O E-Journals]
Week 7: Feb 17 - 22 READING WEEK
Chapter 4: Towards a Cultural Criminology of the Everyday
3
Week 8: Feb 27: Deviance & The Politics of Inclusion & Exclusion
Crime Consumption & City Assignment Due March 3 @ 11:30PM Virtual Campus (worth 25%)
Chapter 5: Media & Crime
Jarvis, B.2007. Monsters Inc: serial killers and consumer culture’, Crime Media and Culture 3(3): 13146. [Search U of O E-Journals]
Week 9: March 6: Moral Panics & its Discontents
Cohen (2011).Whose side were we on? The undeclared politics of moral panic theory. Crime Media
Culture. Vol. 7 (no. 3) 237-243. [Search U of O E-Journals]
McRobbie, A. & Thornton, S. 1995. Rethinking “moral panic” for multi-mediated social worlds’, British
Journal of Sociology 46(4): 245 -59. [Search U of O E-Journals]
Week 10: March 13:Resistance is Everywhere?
Chapter 6: Dangerous Knowledge
* Drop Date - Nov. 16th *
Week 11: March 20: Criminological Futures / Review Class
Chapter 7: Cultural Criminology, An Innovation
Week 12: March 27: In Class Presentations Worth 15% Attendance is Mandatory
Week 13: April 3: In Class Presentations Worth 15% Attendance is Mandatory
*Final Take Home Exam (Tentatively Due: April 19th): Worth 35%*
4