Abstract
In the early 20th century, Vienna and Berlin were centers of industrial and scientific advancement while also home to violent fantasies and urban decay. Spector uses this dichotomy to frame his exploration of the evolution of European modernity. Central to this exploration are the characters living on the fringe of society during this time period including homosexuals, sensual women, and Jews. These marginal figures collided with the “respectable” side of the metropolises through the discourses of emerging sciences, court cases, and sensational media accounts of these groups. As these “border figures” came to be known by society, violent fantasies surrounding the activities of these groups grew. Through a litany of historical writings and documents, Spector charts not only how these outsiders came to be identified by the mainstream but also how these marginalized groups came to identify themselves.
Vienna and Berlin provide the backdrop for the intermingling of sex and crime thoroughly described in Spector’s Violent Sensations and the metropolitan setting is just as crucial to the narrative in Violent Sensations as the inhabitants populating the two cities. Thus, before concentrating on the groups within these cities, Spector focuses on developments occurring within Vienna and Berlin in Chapter 1. The first chapter is premised on the belief that, at the turn of the 20th century, life in these two modern cities was fundamentally different than anything than what had come before it. Spector examines how this line of thinking emerged and ties it to the dual contexts of enlightenment and the anxiety of urbanization inherent in modernity. Crime is entwined in this discussion as both an aspect of that societal anxiety and a developing field of study with an emphasis on the debates surrounding the origin of criminality.
The next two chapters are devoted to issues surrounding homosexuality with Chapter 2 focusing specifically on the origins of the homosexual identity. The chapter presents early writings on homosexuality from several scholars who trace the idea of homosexuality from simply the deviant acts of heterosexual individuals to the medicalization of homosexuality to a burgeoning homosexual community. As Spector points out, with the recognition of homosexuality, the conception of sexuality itself is also originated. With the emerging recognition of homosexuality as an identity came a simultaneous cultural fantasy connecting homosexuals to brutality. The connection between this newly recognized sexual identity and violence is highlighted in a court case involving the murder of a child with a homosexual suspect and the sensationalized approach of the media in presenting homosexuality as a perversity.
The role of the media in proliferating ideas about homosexuality is focused upon more in Chapter 3. While researchers and medical experts were gaining knowledge of homosexuality through case studies of homosexual patients, this information did not reach the general public. The public’s understanding of homosexuality was acquired through the media’s reporting of sex scandals involving homosexuality. In this chapter, Spector discusses several of these scandals in depth. One of the scandals discussed combines media sensationalism with legal proceedings and a landmark scientific study. The scandal involves an individual born as a woman but entered society as a man and eventually married a woman, which resulted in a fraud suit by the father-in-law. This case resulted in the first scientific article on lesbianism and also an early discussion on gender identity. Other scandals detailed include the accusations surrounding the sexuality of members of the advisory circle of Kaiser Wilhelm II and a newspapers’ printing of unedited letters from anonymous homosexual readers angry at the publication’s reporting on homosexuality in Vienna.
While the previous two chapters explored the link between homosexuality and violence, in Chapter 4, Spector shifts focus to a specific type of violent crime and a new marginalized group. Newspaper reports of the slayings of prostitutes by Jack the Ripper in Britain brought with them a growing public fascination with sexually motivated murder or lust murder. Throughout the chapter, Spector emphasizes the move toward both the social and sexual emancipation of women. The prostitute is given particular attention as this group were a visible representation of the criminal underworld while also representing female sexuality and sexuality in general. While the marginalized group shifts in this chapter, the fantasy and sensationalism surround the marginalized group retains its emphasis from the previous chapters, as Spector notes that journalists and the police put the bodies of the victims in lust murder cases on display in obscene manners.
Murder is still the crime under review in Chapter 5, but instead of the lust murder of marginalized women, Violent Sensations’ final chapter examines the panic surrounding sacrificial murder by marginalized Jews. In the wake of several individuals mysteriously disappearing, rumors spread that these disappearances were tied to an ancient tradition of Jews sacrificing Christians as part of religious ceremonies. Spector argues that because of their growing numbers in the area, Jews represented an aspect of modernization that Christian society was guarding against through paranoia of violence against themselves.
The amount of research and preparation put into Violent Sensations by Spector is clearly evident early in the book and only becomes more remarkable the further you delve into the chapters. Spector intricately weaves a narrative of the location and time period by synthesizing a host of primary and secondary historical sources. The work would not be nearly as remarkable, however, without the writing of Spector. Violent Sensations contains a number of deep themes but is written in a clear and concise way that makes the research and themes easy to understand.
With its scope, Violent Sensations will be of interest not only to those in the field of criminal justice and criminology but also to those with an interest in history, gender studies, media studies, sociology, European studies, or psychology.