ABSTRACT

Technology has made the brain both accessible and visible to researchers and the public at large. The threads connecting the neuroscience of criminality and its representations in popular culture are detectable in a variety of locations, including the Batman animated series, which historically parallel the expansion of neuroscientific technologies. Framed by insights from popular criminology and gothic criminology, this project traced how representations of crime in popular culture intersect with representations of the brain, analyzing how the brain is positioned as an explanation for deviance and criminality. In the series, the brain was vulnerable to external forces, causing characters’ deviance. The brain was also a source of power, a trait that was inherently criminal. Characters deemed capable, but who failed to control themselves, were culpable for their criminality, regardless of their “abnormal” brains. Such representations of dysfunctional and technologically-altered brains speak to the complementary nature of popular and scholarly approaches to deviance.

摘要

技术使研究人员和广大公众可以访问和看到大脑。连接犯罪的神经科学及其在流行文化中的表现的线索在许多地方都可以发现，包括蝙蝠侠动画系列，它在历史上与神经科学技术的扩展平行。该项目以流行犯罪学和哥特式犯罪学的见解为框架，追溯了流行文化中的犯罪表现如何与大脑的表现相交，分析大脑如何被定位为对越轨和犯罪的解释。在该系列中，大脑容易受到外力的影响，导致角色的偏差。大脑也是力量的源泉，这种特质本质上是犯罪的。被认为有能力但无法控制自己的角色，无论他们的“异常”大脑如何，都应为他们的犯罪行为负责。这种功能失调和技术改变的大脑的表现说明了流行的和学术的偏差方法的互补性。