FSC Profs Dish on Movie Thriller “The Silence of the Lambs”
November 28, 2016
FSC professors Dr. Michelle Miranda and Dr. Robert Saunders contributed chapters to The Silence of the Lambs: Critical Essays on a Cannibal, Clarice, and a Nice Chianti, a new book about the 1991 Academy Award-winning film that shocked audiences with its portrayals of cannibalism and violence against women, and was voted to the American Film Institute’s list of the top 100 movies of all time.
Dr. Miranda, Department of Security Systems and Law Enforcement Technology, wrote “Forensic ‘Silence’: Identification, Individualization and the Power of Observation,” a chapter described in the book’s Introduction as shining a spotlight on “the development and shaping of Silence’s iconic characters…through the recurring themes of identification and individualization.” Dr. Miranda says her chapter evaluates the role of criminalistics and scientific reasoning, and criminology and psychology, with specific attention to investigative psychology as a tool for criminal profiling.
In his chapter on one of his favorite films, “Hannibal Lecter, Preying on the Last Man at the End of History: A Critical Historiography of The Silence of the Lambs,” Dr. Saunders says he “examines the film, its source material, and director and actor commentary in the context of the larger sweep of human history, specifically the end of the Cold War (1947-1989) and the transition to the so-called “new world order” associated with the United States’ unipolar moment, which began with the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in late 1991.” Dr. Saunders is a member of the Department of History, Politics & Geography.
