Abstract
This chapter discusses the pedagogical implications of the resonances between two periods: late summer and early fall of 1888, when the notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper terrorized the residents of the Whitechapel district, and late May and June 2017, when London itself was on edge. Although the summer program was an experiment in experiential learning, the unexpected terrorist attacks in London during the period in which I was teaching forced students to apprehend history in far more visceral ways than I had planned. Indeed, the incidents of 2017 gave them access to Victorian structures of feeling about the Ripper murders, their coverage by the press, and the size and governability of the metropolis.
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Notes
- 1.
It should be noted, however, that in the case of the Manchester Arena bombing there may be greater overlap than one might assume. Some have pointed out that Ariana Grande’s tour was titled Dangerous Woman and that of the 14,000 who attended, most were pre-teen and teenage girls and young women. For today’s young women, who were Abedi’s targets, attending a concert on their own has become something of a rite-of-passage (Leszkiewicz 2018).
- 2.
But stoking fears of sexual peril, middle-class husbands and fathers also sought to use these events to restrict the movements of their wives and daughters.
- 3.
This belief has persisted. Because orthodox Jews follow a strict code in the preparation of meat for consumption, Robin Odell returned to this theory in 1965 to declare that the Ripper was likely a schochet, or ritual slaughterer (Odell 1965: pp. 252–66).
- 4.
More recently, Russell Edwards (2014) names Jewish Polish immigrant Aaron Kosminski using mitochondrial DNA supposedly left on a shawl owned by Catherine Eddowes. His conclusions and the findings of the DNA expert whom he employed have been criticized.
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Morrison, K.A. (2019). Inadvertently Reliving History: Teaching Jack the Ripper in a Time of Terror. In: Study Abroad Pedagogy, Dark Tourism, and Historical Reenactment. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23006-7_6
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