Critical Criminology at the Edge: Postmodern Perspectives, Integration, and Applications

This textbook introduces undergraduate and graduate criminology students to four perspectives in postmodern analysis: discourse analysis (Lacanian), chaos theory, catastrophe theory, and edgework.

Exposition of these theories in Part I provides students with accessible introductions to complex literatures from several disciplines. Part II integrates, synthesizes and applies these various perspectives to cinema and TV programming, literary texts (detective fiction), trial court texts, lawyering practices, peacemaking criminology, and edgework. Part II is intended to show how postmodern analysis can be useful in critical analysis in law, criminology and social justice.