From private concerns to public narratives: tracing the rise of personal stories about crime
Jennifer Fleetwood traces changes in criminal justice, technology and media that accord novel forms of space, respectability and meaning to public storytelling about crime.
SocSci Hub
Date: Wednesday 25 March 2026
Time: 15:30
Venue: Room 381, Adam Smith Business School, Adam Smith Building
Category: Public lectures, Academic events, Student events
Speaker: Jennifer Fleetwood, St George’s University of London
This seminar is co-organised by the University of Glasgow’s Division of Sociological and Cultural Studies and the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research.
Telling a personal story about crime was once, mostly, a private matter confined to criminal justice or private settings – the police station or the kitchen table. But, since the 1990s, it has become commonplace to tell a story about crime in public – in paperback memoir, in social media, podcasts, documentaries, or broadsheet newspapers.
This paper examines the social and cultural conditions that support this public storytelling, drawing on Plummer’s sociological approach to the ‘storytelling society’. It traces changes in criminal justice, technology and media that accord novel forms of space, respectability and meaning to public storytelling about crime.
Bio: Jennifer’s work explores narrative and ‘crime’. Her most recent book is What We Talk About When We Talk About Crime (Notting Hill Editions).
NB – This is an in-person event at the University of Glasgow. There’s no need to register just turn up!