![]() That such long-unresolved cases as Green River and BTK have finally been closed in recent years represents one main reason for the existence of this new edition of The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. A great deal has happened since the book first came out in 1995. Major new cases have occurred (like that of Dr. Harold Shipman, now regarded as the most prolific serial killer in modern history). There have been important new developments in old cases (including a supposed final solution of the most legendary serial murders of all, those committed by Jack the Ripper). Significant shifts have taken place in our understanding of the subject (it is clear, for example, that both female and African-American serial killers are far more common than previously thought). We have even managed to trace a different-and significantly older-origin for the phrase serial killer itself. In revising our book, then, we have tried to make it as up-to-date as possible. But The A to Z Encyclopedia was never meant to be simply a reference tool. It always aimed to be something else: a book which acknowledged that the subject of serial murder exerts a dark but undeniable attraction-the kind of dreadful pleasure that, as children, we derive from immersing ourselves in the fairy-tale world of demons and witches and flesh-eating ogres. There’s little point in denying the fact that, for whatever reasons-anxiety management, morbid curiosity, latent sadism-people enjoy reading about monsters. Like the first edition of our book, this revision is meant to both enlighten and entertain. It is offered, in short, not only in the spirit of serious scholarship but in frank recognition of what Joseph Conrad calls the fascination of the abomination. We are writing this preface in the fall of 1995, when the number-one film at the box office is Se7en, a dark, intensely creepy thriller about a serial murderer who contrives to kill his victims in accordance with the seven deadly sins (lust, greed, gluttony, sloth, pride, anger, and envy). The American public’s long-standing interest in psychopathic butchers-the same morbid fascination that, back in 1991, made Jeffrey Dahmer a People magazine cover boy and Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs an Oscar-winning blockbuster-is still going strong. Indeed, what was initially a fringe phenomenon-an obsession with blood-crazed psychokillers that was more or less limited to diehard splatter-movie fans-has become so mainstream that publications as traditionally staid (if not stuffy) as The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker have jumped on the bandwagon of late. The former ran a major essay on serial killers by novelist Joyce Carol Oates, while the latter did an extended, pre-execution profile of John Wayne Gacy that included exclusive excerpts from the unpublished writings of America’s most notorious killer. Moralizing critics have been quick to condemn this phenomenon (labeled serial chic) as still another nasty symptom of societal rot, along with gangsta rap and ads for Calvin Klein underwear. ![]() SERIAL HUNTER STEPHANE BOURGOIN HANSEN SERIAL We would point out that in considering the significance of pop phenomena it is always useful to put things in a broader cultural context. SERIAL HUNTER STEPHANE BOURGOIN HANSEN TV.SERIAL HUNTER STEPHANE BOURGOIN HANSEN SERIAL.
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