Four Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Tuesdays, December 23, 2025 - January 13, 2026
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$100 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
Are you morbidly curious? Do you love talking, thinking, and reading about true crime? Do you like to investigate, explore, research strange, disturbing events?
The recent upsurge of interest in true crime is not new; it feeds on a long-established historical tradition. People have always been drawn to unusual and bizarre criminal cases, but most are merely transfixed by the latest headlines, rarely stopping to think deeply about the complexities of the case. The surface drama, intrigue and suspense in superficial true crime narratives conceals how they are transformed in such a way that panders to public appeal. This class will dive beneath this surface, investigating how crimes are like poems, with thier own style, undercurrents, imagery, and moods.
Over the course of four weeks—and led by Oxford-educated true crime author Mikita Brottman, PhD—we will consider different types of true crime writing, from the clinical to the autobiographical, considering how psychoanalysis might be able to help us to understand the paradox of our interest in mysterious and horrifying events. We will consider the aesthetic dimension of true crime, which includes its means of presentation, the theatrics of its delivery, and the forms of image and gesture. We will also think about the ways in which crimes are registered within the material properties of objects, including bodies and places.
Along with lectures. we will explore ways to get started in writing about true crime. What makes a good subject? How do we find the right style? How do we structure a narrative, obtain documents, and locate witnesses? How do we explore the aesthetic dimensions of murder? What crimes are we drawn to, and why? What is at stake, personally, ethically, and morally, when we read and write about true crime?
Mikita Brottman, PhD, NCPsyA, is an Oxford-educated true crime author, psychoanalyst, and professor of literature at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She is the author of 16 books. Her latest, Guilty Creatures: Sex, Death and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2025.
Four Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Tuesdays, December 23, 2025 - January 13, 2026
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$100 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
Are you morbidly curious? Do you love talking, thinking, and reading about true crime? Do you like to investigate, explore, research strange, disturbing events?
The recent upsurge of interest in true crime is not new; it feeds on a long-established historical tradition. People have always been drawn to unusual and bizarre criminal cases, but most are merely transfixed by the latest headlines, rarely stopping to think deeply about the complexities of the case. The surface drama, intrigue and suspense in superficial true crime narratives conceals how they are transformed in such a way that panders to public appeal. This class will dive beneath this surface, investigating how crimes are like poems, with thier own style, undercurrents, imagery, and moods.
Over the course of four weeks—and led by Oxford-educated true crime author Mikita Brottman, PhD—we will consider different types of true crime writing, from the clinical to the autobiographical, considering how psychoanalysis might be able to help us to understand the paradox of our interest in mysterious and horrifying events. We will consider the aesthetic dimension of true crime, which includes its means of presentation, the theatrics of its delivery, and the forms of image and gesture. We will also think about the ways in which crimes are registered within the material properties of objects, including bodies and places.
Along with lectures. we will explore ways to get started in writing about true crime. What makes a good subject? How do we find the right style? How do we structure a narrative, obtain documents, and locate witnesses? How do we explore the aesthetic dimensions of murder? What crimes are we drawn to, and why? What is at stake, personally, ethically, and morally, when we read and write about true crime?
Mikita Brottman, PhD, NCPsyA, is an Oxford-educated true crime author, psychoanalyst, and professor of literature at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She is the author of 16 books. Her latest, Guilty Creatures: Sex, Death and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2025.
