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"A Criminal Strain Ran In His Blood": Biomedical Science, Criminology, and Empire in the Sherlock Holmes Canon

Workman, Simon
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7837-4713
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1505126689988603

Abstract Details

2017, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: English and Comparative Literature.
Nearly a century and a half after their initial publication, it is clear that Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and novels continue to be a cultural phenomenon throughout the world. However, less clear are the ways in which those works emerged in response to—and as an example of—cultural anxieties surrounding advancements in science, particularly in the fields of biology and medicine. Advances such as Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection not only called into question basic long-standing assumptions about man’s relationship to the universe; they also promised to improve the investigation of crime, as well as potentially justify certain imperialist beliefs about racial difference—beliefs that themselves influenced the development of criminal investigation. This project demonstrates how the Sherlock Holmes novels and stories both respond to and participate in the ideological nexus of biomedical science, criminology, and British imperialism by examining the ways in which certain key texts in the Holmes canon deploy medical discourse, criminological theory, and imperialist assumptions in the creation of a rational and “scientific” worldview through the characters of Dr. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.
Tamar Heller, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Beth Ash, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Leland Person, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
181 p.
Literature
Sherlock Holmes; Detective Fiction; Criminology; Physiognomy; Racial Profiling; Biological Determinism

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Workman, S. (2017). "A Criminal Strain Ran In His Blood": Biomedical Science, Criminology, and Empire in the Sherlock Holmes Canon [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1505126689988603

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Workman, Simon. "A Criminal Strain Ran In His Blood": Biomedical Science, Criminology, and Empire in the Sherlock Holmes Canon. 2017. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1505126689988603.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Workman, Simon. ""A Criminal Strain Ran In His Blood": Biomedical Science, Criminology, and Empire in the Sherlock Holmes Canon." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1505126689988603

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1505126689988603
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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.