Gastvortrag von Dr. Ralph Grunewald: Participatory Speculation: The “True Crime” Movement and Our New Culture of Crime

In the last decades, crime has developed an omnipresence in the media, not just in the news but also in popular culture and entertainment. The arguably most prominent genre is true crime. Here, an author examines a crime and the people associated with and affected by criminal events with varying degrees of editing. While true crime has a long history, with the first accounts appearing 300 years ago, the more recent advent of investigative podcasts and TV series has opened the criminal justice discourse in an unprecedented way. Criminal cases regardless of their adjudication status (final or in progress) have entered the public domain and become everyone’s to discuss. Producers reinvestigate evidence and raise doubt, and consumers become adjudicators. While the bulk of true crime is produced in United States, the interest in diving deeper into a case and questioning the functioning of a criminal justice system is universal. Shows like Netflix’s Making a Murderer or podcasts like Serial attracted audiences of millions that share a similar fascination for true crime. In some instances, true crime productions have led to the reopening of cases and even acquittals, in others, speculations about the “real” killer have left victims in the shadows of the case.

In my seminar presentation, I would like to engage students in a critical discussion of true crime as a genre, its definition and scope, and how it functions. How reliable and truthful are true crime representations of crime, guilt, and innocence? How justified is the criticism it ostensibly raises about the justice system, and what is true crime’s agenda? Is it the pursuit of a more truthful, more dignified justice system, or is it in the end all for entertainment? As a basis for our discussion, we will watch a section from the true crime show “The Girl from Plainville” (a program that features the Michelle Carter case) and read a few texts (on the case and the true crime genre).

Prof. Ralph Grunewald is an Associate Professor in the Department of English and in the Center for Law, Society, and Justice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is the Mellon-Morgride Professor of the Humanities.

Prof. Grunewald studied law at the University of Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate) and completed his legal education with the Second State Exam in Nürnberg (Bavaria). He earned a Ph.D. (Dr. jur.) in criminal law and criminology from the University of Mainz. After that, Prof. Grunewald joined the Master of Laws (LL.M.) program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, where he worked with the Wisconsin Innocence Project. He then practiced law as a defense attorney at a law firm that specializes on while collar and corporate defense (Wirtschaftsstrafrecht) in Düsseldorf. After that, he returned to Madison, Wisconsin permanently to research and teach.

Prof. Grunewald is the author of two books and numerous articles. His research agenda is very interdisciplinary. He mainly focuses on legal narratology and comparative questions of criminal law. In his new book with the title “Narratives of Guilt and Innocence: The Power of Storytelling in Wrongful Conviction Cases” (NYU Press, July 2023) he analyses the function of legal storytelling in the criminal justice system (in the United States and Germany) and how processes of narrativization must be considered contributing factors in wrongful convictions.

Prof. Grunewald’s teaching reflects his research. He teaches large lecture classes like “Criminal Justice in America” but also seminars on “Law and Literature” and “Guilt.” He is currently developing a new class on the true crime movement which will be taught this coming fall. Prof. Grunewald is a committed teacher and has earned numerous teaching awards from students and student organizations. In 2017, he received the William H Kiekhofer Distinguished Teaching award from the Chancellor of UW-Madison. This is the highest teaching honor at UW-Madison.