Under the Gun
Criminology Goes Back to the Movies
Will be published approx. on 14. April 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
256 pages
978-1-4798-1894-5 (ISBN)
Description
An essential guide to understanding classic and contemporary crime films
Under the Gun provides a systematic and sophisticated criminological perspective to bear on crime films. The book provides a fresh way of looking at cinema, using the concepts and analytical tools of criminology to uncover previously unnoticed meanings in film, ultimately making the study of criminological theory more engaging and effective for students while simultaneously demonstrating how theories of crime circulate in our mass-mediated worlds. The result is an illuminating new way of seeing movies and a compelling way of learning about criminology.
Stepping into the fray between the gritty realities of crime and punishment and their mediated forms, Under the Gun also brings into relief the ways that crime theory might birth the seeds of its own undoing. From those primordial and revenant crime theories-the elemental evil driving films like The Conjuring, the brute biological determinism of There's Something About Kevin, and the banal carceral feminism of The Silence of the Lambs-to the countervisual work of reckoning: the prescient intersectionality of Set It Off, the queer and green criminologies of Moonlight and Dark Water, and the anti-colonial indictment of Saint Omer, Under the Gun asks would-be criminologists to a take up the cultural work that is truly foundational to the study of harm, violence, and justice.
Under the Gun provides a systematic and sophisticated criminological perspective to bear on crime films. The book provides a fresh way of looking at cinema, using the concepts and analytical tools of criminology to uncover previously unnoticed meanings in film, ultimately making the study of criminological theory more engaging and effective for students while simultaneously demonstrating how theories of crime circulate in our mass-mediated worlds. The result is an illuminating new way of seeing movies and a compelling way of learning about criminology.
Stepping into the fray between the gritty realities of crime and punishment and their mediated forms, Under the Gun also brings into relief the ways that crime theory might birth the seeds of its own undoing. From those primordial and revenant crime theories-the elemental evil driving films like The Conjuring, the brute biological determinism of There's Something About Kevin, and the banal carceral feminism of The Silence of the Lambs-to the countervisual work of reckoning: the prescient intersectionality of Set It Off, the queer and green criminologies of Moonlight and Dark Water, and the anti-colonial indictment of Saint Omer, Under the Gun asks would-be criminologists to a take up the cultural work that is truly foundational to the study of harm, violence, and justice.
Reviews / Votes
"Two of criminology's fiercest thinkers will disrupt the way you watch films about crime and punishment. Through their eyes, we see how the systems that produce crime efface our ability to see the real solutions to our social problems: education and housing, food and healthcare, love, family and camaraderie. Michelle Brown and Travis Linnemann make theory necessary and urgent to our understanding of visual power, and the seduction and satisfaction of watching crime on the screen. This book is as much about how to make good crime theory as it is about how to watch crime movies. Under the Gun demands that we re-think our need for criminology at a time of global transgression, where monsters and demons lurk in every theory of crime. Take this book wherever you go to resist criminology: the classroom, the library, the barricades, the cinema." - Katherine Biber, author of Captive Images, In Crime's Archive and The Last Outlaws"Before I read Under the Gun, I had never thought about how movies could capture, reflect, and challenge the ideas at the core of the history of criminology. Try seeing some of the movies that you love (or hate) in the same way after reading this fascinating, thoughtful, challenging, and (yes!) entertaining book." - Leigh Goodmark, author of Imperfect Victims: Criminalized Survivors and the Promise of Abolition Feminism
"In Under the Gun, two of criminology's most innovative theorists turn their attention to the intertwined issues of cultural representation and criminological theory. Each of the book's chapters offers a sparkling, sharp-minded analysis of a popular film and its criminological context. Reading and counter-reading these films, Brown and Linnemann in turn explore the contradictory potential of a more general popular criminology, and craft a damning critique of academic criminology's ongoing crisis. This is a genuinely dramatic book; were it a film, it would surely be up for an Oscar." - Jeff Ferrell, author of Drift: Illicit Mobility and Uncertain Knowledge
"Offering deep dives into a diverse collection of films, Under the Gun examines and troubles both criminological theory and the cultural work it performs in media. The book traverses theory across the demonic, biological, and social explanations of crime to those approaches that disrupt the very ontological security of criminology's foundational concepts. Examining classic movie portrayals of crime and cops that deepen the worn grooves of criminological common sense as well as films that offer new if provisional visual language for thinking about climate change, capitalism, and colonialism, Brown and Linnemann take a hard look at a discipline firmly rooted in state violence and offer us glimpses into the kinds of cultural productions and political formations that may lead us elsewhere." - Judah Schept, author Coal, Cages, Crisis: The Rise of the Prison Economy in Central Appalachia
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
12 b/w images
Dimensions
Height: 227 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
364 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4798-1894-5 (9781479818945)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
04/2026
NYU Press
€24.49
Available for download
Persons
Michelle Brown (Author)
Michelle Brown is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Appalachian Justice Research Center at the University of Tennessee. She is the author of The Culture of Punishment, the co-editor of The Routledge International Handbook of Visual Criminology, and co-director of the digital project Abolition Now: Images for Study and Struggle.
Travis Linnemann (Author)
Travis Linnemann is Associate Professor of Sociology at Kansas State University. He is the author of Meth Wars: Police, Media, Power and The Horror of Police.
Michelle Brown is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Appalachian Justice Research Center at the University of Tennessee. She is the author of The Culture of Punishment, the co-editor of The Routledge International Handbook of Visual Criminology, and co-director of the digital project Abolition Now: Images for Study and Struggle.
Travis Linnemann (Author)
Travis Linnemann is Associate Professor of Sociology at Kansas State University. He is the author of Meth Wars: Police, Media, Power and The Horror of Police.