Workshop Organized by Marcel Danesi and Mike Arntfield

SSA 41st Annual Meeting, Delray Beach, Florida, September 29, 2016

This workshop will examine the work going on in forensic semiotics on the relation between murder as a criminal act and culture as the framework in which murder is defined. The workshop is intended to bring together a collage of ideas, with a semiotic basis, including actual police work on the relation between murder and culture, the phenomenon of the serial killer as a modern-day one, the relation between actual murder and television and movies about murder, such as Natural Born Killers. Especially critical in this whole area is the role of murder in the origin and rise of detective fiction and how this dovetails with the actual rise of forensic science and the synergy that has remained between the two ever since. In addition to papers by the two organizers, proposals are welcome from all SSA members and from anyone who is working in this interdisciplinary field.