I have a thing for bad medieval art The first autobiography in the English language was written by a woman. Margery Kempe who lived from 1376-1438 in Kings Lynn, England and was famed as a mystic. At a time when literacy was unusual it is uncertain if Kempe had an education or could read. She …
Continue reading Crime in Culture: Britany Spears, The Woman in Me.
There are some emotions, some cognative processess which different cultures don't do well with. It's nobodies fault. Something happened, probably at a formative point in the culture which meant that whatever feeling or opinion was under examination, would not again be the choice of that group of people. Many cultures which have western christianity as …
Continue reading Shadow of Doubt: An Australian True Crime Podcast About Familial Abuse
Most teenage girls who dream in their bedrooms of becoming famous think they may be pop stars, perhaps actors or models, a few of them like Malala and Greta Thunberg do it through activism. Very few teenage girls dream of becoming a terrorist. However this is what happened to Shamima Begum, a 15 year old …
Continue reading Essay: The Crime and Punishment of Shamima Begum
Motherhood is an idea that permeates If You Tell by Greg Olsen by it's absence. Olsen recounts the life of Shelly Knotek, who killed three, and abused countless others, including her own children. Knotek could easily be cast in the role of femme fatal, her good looks attracting many unsuspecting men into her orbit, but that would be too surface a reading of what is a clearly aberant pshycology. Instead Olsen makes his readers the proverbial frog in water slowly begining to boil, as he trace the development of Knotek from a troubled and difficult child and teen into a fully fledged murderer.
