Of Men And Monsters: Jeffrey Dahmer And The Construction of the Serial Killer

Of Men and Monsters examines the serial killer as an American cultural icon, one that both attracts and repels. Richard Tithecott suggests that the stories we tell and the images we conjure of serial killers-real and fictional-reveal as much about mainstream culture and its values, desires, and anxieties as they do about the killers themselves.

''In this post-modern reading, Jeffrey Dahmer is not a page in the history of true crime but a Monster who serves many rhetorical and cultural functions.''- Philip Jenkins, Penn State University, author of Using Murder: The Social Construction of Serial Homicide

''Brilliantly compelling. Tithecott challenges us to investigate our simultaneous distancing from and fascination with serial murder.''-Maria Tatar, Harvard University, author of Lustmord: Sexual Murder in Weimar Germany

Of Men and Monsters explores the serial killer as an American cultural icon. Looking at how Jeffrey Dahmer's story was told-on Geraldo Rivera's talk show, in People Weekly pictorials and CNN specials, in Washington Post editorials-and at other examples of serial killers, real and fictional, Jeffrey Tithecott argues that the serial killer we construct for ourselves is a figure both repulsive and attractive who fulfills dreams of masculinity, purity, and violence.