Serial Killing: A Philosophical Anthology

by Edia Connole (Editor and Contributor), Gary J. Shipley (Editor and Contributor), David Roden (Contributor)

Those screams you're hearing are philosophy being awoken from its dogmatic slumbers with a stark brutality rarely matched in the history of intellectual anomaly. If there's a more intense sleep-killer compilation out there somewhere, it's concealing itself well.

– Nick Land, author of Templexity: Disordered Loops through Shanghai Time (Urbanatomy, 2014)


We simultaneously love and hate serial killers: we dread them, and yet we are fascinated by them. Both in reality, and in books and television shows, serial killers seem to stand at the very edge of what is possible, or of what is human. The essays in this volume push to the extremes of philosophy, and of art and literature, in order to speak to our uneasy relationship with what we both desire and abhor.

– Steven Shaviro, Wayne State University, author of The Universe of Things (UMP, 2014)


Serial Killing leaves behind the analysis of the serial killer as a romantic anti-hero, diagnostic category of psychopathology or sociological symptom to offer a collection of essays that infuses the conventional delusions of critical distance with the passionate, homicidal embrace of loving neighborliness. The theoretical, photographic and fictional essays in this volume take the serial killer as an object of both philosophical speculation and spiritual contemplation. In a brilliant cornucopia of styles and obsessions, serial killing becomes, among many other things: the touchstone of common in-humanity, a form of sacrifice and mystical rite, a leisure activity, a kind of bloody ikebana, a kaligraphic and auto-graphic mode of self-portraiture and flesh inscription, the meta-relational emanation of immanent suffering, a form of kleptomancy, an expression of neoliberal love, an ascetic practice of cosmic joy. It is properly mad.

– Scott Wilson, Kingston University, author of Stop Making Sense (Karnac, 2015)


One of the deepest and darkest truths in psychoanalysis is about the serial nature of the object. We pretend that it is unique, irreplaceable, singular, but it isn't, and it always exists as part of a multiple whose secret truth, to our real horror, is the emptiness or nothing at the center of this excess. In this fascinating collection of essays edited by Edia Connole and Gary Shipley we find out about this serial perversion of everyday life.

– Jamieson Webster, Eugene Lang College, author of Stay! Illusion (Vintage, 2014)

Genres: Philosophy, Anthropology, Anthologies, Nonfiction, Politics

428 pages, Paperback

First published August 5, 2015

Reviews

[David Peak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed and got a lot out of "Trans-serial and the Deadly Medium" by Irina Gheorghe, "Religion, Domination and Serial Killing: Western Culture and Murder" by Paul O'Brien, and "Exquisite Corpse: Serial Writing and the Horripilation of Writing" by Aspasia Stephanou.

[strategian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first 2/3 of this book is very dry academic texts discussing serial murder in a broad, cultural and social context, rather than the specific dissection of notable killers (although specific instances are referenced as evidence or brought up in discussion). I found a lot of to be mind numbingly pontificating and masturbatory, specifically the texts which seem to be trying in earnest to present the murder as some sort of rapturous and spiritual act, but the essays grounded more firmly in reality - such as that suggesting that serial murder could perhaps have its roots in western society's modern state- make for interesting, if a little meandering, reading.

The last third is a strange departure in that it is prose based, containing short stories and an extract from Yuu Seki's poem 'Serial Kitsch'. Also included are collages by various artists that don't really add much being poorly printed and represented in black and white on a small size.

If you find yourself interested in the subject and also in a broad spectrum of philosophy and psychology this book may be of interest to you. But if you are looking for a more earthly account of actual murders/murderers, look elsewhere.

Of note for black metal fans the leader of the band Liturgy makes an authorial contribution which tries and fails to gives insight into his incomprehensible and astounding philosophical outlook.

06/02/2021: Since I wrote this the artist behind Liturgy is now a girl. Congratulations to her!

[Tucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes this gets a little deep into the idea of serial killing as an ecstatic experience — or whatever positive/insightful/productive ideas or experiences that serial killing might be compared to — which makes me feel it is missing some larger framework to contain the subject matter. For example: knowledge of whether sociopathy is really a thing, or really of whether any psychological diagnosis is a thing, and what role "corrections" (i.e. the carceral system) plays...come to think of it, now that I've finished it, I don't remember any discussion of capital punishment, which is odd because that is exactly the sort of topic this collection would seem to have gravitated towards. There were a number of sentences that I felt I learned something from, although mostly those had little to do with serial killers specifically and rather were about more general philosophical topics (e.g. what is reality). I wrote a small amount on Medium.

[Michael Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unfortunately, David Roden has simply accepted the facts of history when he asserts that Aristotle's understanding of human teleology has been replaced by the Darwinian account which separates natural ends from biological types. But haven't most 'educated' people done so?

[Freddie James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a tough one to rate as it’s a collection of different papers, so obviously some I enjoyed for than others.

The collection is very academic and a lot of it went over my head, which might mean my rating is unfair and I accept that if I had a much stronger grasp of philosophical concepts this may have been higher. As a layman however, I can only go with what I know.

Some of the papers I found really really interesting, and some I struggled to see how they fit into the theme of serial killing. I do think there are some worth reading (as a layman) and I’ve listed them below.

My personal favourites were The Language of Flowers, Dreaming the end of Dreaming, and Murder by telephone numbers.

ALIENS UNDER THE SKIN: SERIAL KILLING AND THE SEDUCTION OF OUR COMMON INHIMANITY - David Roden

SO LET IT BE WRITTEN, A CREEPING DEATH: PHAGOCYTOTIC CHRONAPTOPTSIS, OR THE SELF THAT KILLS THE OTHER THAT THE SELF CREATED, SLOWLY - Niall W. R. Scott

GULP OF SUN: RETHINKING SACRIFICE THROUGH BATAILLE’S GILLES DE RAIS - Brooker Buckingham

THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS: SERIAL KITSCH - Edina Connole

WRITING FROM THE HEART: EMERGING FROM THE REALM OF THE INVISIBLE - David Peak

RELIGION, DOMINATION AND SERIAL KILLING: WESTERN CULTURE AND MURDER - Paul O’Brien

AMOUR FOU AND THE ECSTACY OF DESTRUCTION, OR LOVE IN NEO-LIBERAL TIMES - Anthony Faramelli

I AM ODD FOR TODAY - Yuu Seki

THE BERITHIC WANDERER: DAEMONUS MONSMORANCIENSIS - Nicola Masciandaro

NE REMINISCARIS - James

DREAMING THE END OF DREAMING - Florin Flueras

MURDER BY TELEPHONE NUMBERS: UNREASON AND SERIAL KILLING THROUGH THE WORK OF DOUGLAS ADAMS - Caoimhe Doyle & Katherine Foyle