Journal articles on the topic 'Wisconsin Vocational'

Two research studies were carried out in rural locations in the state of Wisconsin. The first study was a survey of secondary transition and vocational education practices in fifteen small school districts. The second study was a survey of employment outcomes of former students with mild disabilities from the same districts. Strengths and weaknesses in service delivery were identified and discussed in response to student outcomes. This article concludes with recommended activities that teachers can implement to meet student transitional needs.

The purpose of this study was to provide empirical evidence for the validity of the Lustig Color Vector Test (LCVT) as a vocational interest measure. The LCVT, a nonverbal instrument, is a schematic attempt to represent the Vector Theory of Behavior which describes human behavior in terms of motion and the laws of physics. A sample of 92 participants was chosen to represent the literate male population of incarcerated offenders in the Wisconsin state prison system. Participants were administered the LCVT as well as Holland's Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) and a demographic questionnaire. The results offered tentative support to the notion that the LCVT does measure vocational interest, thereby lending credence to Lustig's Vector Theory of Behavior.

This article examines learning potential as a predictor of the success of a vocational rehabilitation program for patients with severe mental illness in Germany. Forty-one schizophrenia patients completed a pretest–training–posttest version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test as a measure of learning potential. Pretest scores indicated basic cognitive performance, and posttest scores indicated individual learning potential. Rehabilitation outcome was assessed using measures for work capability during the rehabilitation program and the level of vocational integration at 3-month follow-up. Individual learning potential was a better predictor of work capability and the level of vocational reintegration than basic cognitive performance. Our study demonstrates that learning potential is an informative predictor for rehabilitation outcome and adds information beyond basic cognitive performance.

The purpose of this study was to validate the Vocational Rehabilitation Engagement Scale (VRES) in a sample of state vocational rehabilitation (VR) service consumers. A total of 277 individuals with disabilities were recruited from Alaska, Kentucky, Florida, Michigan, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin. The measurement structure of the VRES was evaluated using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Exploratory factor analysis results support a one-factor measurement structure of the VRES. Confirmatory factor analysis results also indicated a good model fit for the one-factor measurement model. Internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s α) for the scores on the VRES was computed to be .94. VR engagement was found to be associated with working alliance, vocational self-efficacy, internal motivation, and VR outcome expectancy in the expected direction. The VRES is a brief, reliable, and valid instrument for assessing VR engagement and contributes to the use of self-determination as a paradigm for improving motivation and engagement of people with disabilities receiving services from state VR agencies.

The author of this article describes an interdisciplinary transition model which is being utilized in various school districts in rural Wisconsin. The Collaborative Transition Model promotes the formalization of transition planning for special populations by linking vocational assessment, IEP development, program placement, instructional support, exit transition conferences, and post school follow-up into a systematic process. The importance of collaborative planning between students, parents, educators, and adult service providers will be highlighted.

Racially and ethnically diverse youth with disabilities receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits were randomly assigned to usual services, including available school and vocational rehabilitation (VR) transition services, or enhanced case management and transition services through the Wisconsin Promoting Readiness of Minors in SSI (PROMISE) federal demonstration grant. A hierarchical logistic regression analysis demonstrated increased age, being African American, having a psychiatric disability, and transition services predicted higher youth employment rates. However, enhanced PROMISE transition services were no longer significant in the presence of VR services, suggesting the effect of enhanced services was mediated by increasing engagement in VR. Limitations and implications are discussed regarding the relationship between school and state VR transition services and postsecondary competitive integrated employment outcomes.

Technology has been shown to enhance daily activities, increase participation in individualized planning and supports, and accommodate the transition needs of students with disabilities. This study examined the benefits and challenges regarding technology use when providing transition services for youth and families receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. Specifically, it explored the nuances of employing technology to encourage engagement in Wisconsin Promoting the Readiness of Minors in Supplemental Security Income (WI PROMISE) services and foster communication between counselors and participants. This qualitative study used a constant comparative method for analyzing data collected through two focus groups of WI PROMISE counselors. Counselors identified technology as essential to maintaining contact with WI PROMISE participants as well as extant barriers including inconsistent access to the internet, financial expense, and insufficient training and support. Recommendations for using technology to communicate with transition-age youth and their families will be discussed.

e18658 Background: Adolescent and young adults (AYAs) experience poorer outcomes, including lower survival improvements, compared to younger and older patients. As higher compliance with National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines has been associated with improved outcomes, we sought to understand the influence of psychosocial factors on receipt of care concordant with NCCN guidelines in AYAs with bone sarcomas. Methods: Retrospective chart review was performed on adult AYA patients (18-39 years) with localized Ewing sarcoma (ES) or high-grade conventional osteosarcoma (OS) seen at least once between 2015-2019 at the University of Wisconsin (UW). These tumor types were selected given uniform guideline-based care recommendations. Chart review identified receipt of standard care as per NCCN Bone Cancer guidelines, defined as neoadjuvant chemotherapy, local therapy (surgery/radiation), and adjuvant chemotherapy with receipt of at least 75% of recommended chemotherapy cycles, and compared to interpersonal relationships (marital status and presence of children at cancer diagnosis), changes in school or work following cancer diagnosis, substance use, and residential location. Results: We identified 21 AYA patients with localized ES (10/21, 48%) or OS (11/21, 52%), with 67% (14/21) receiving NCCN guideline concordant care. Receipt of guideline concordant care was associated with interpersonal relationships, with only 33% (1/3) of patients with children versus 72% (13/18) of patients without children receiving guideline concordant care. Additionally, the one patient noted to divorce following cancer diagnosis did not receive guideline concordant care (0/1, 0%) as compared with 67% (10/15) of single patients and 80% (4/5) of married patients. Vocational changes also affected care, with only 56% (5/9) of patients with work change following cancer diagnosis receiving guideline concordant care versus 75% (9/12) without work changes. Guideline concordant care was less common in patients with alcohol use (5/10, 50%) as compared with patients without alcohol use (9/11, 82%). Residential distance to UW was also associated with receipt of guideline concordant care, which was more common in patients living 0-20 miles from UW (86%, 6/7) as compared with those 21-100 miles from UW (60%, 6/10) or > 100 miles from UW (50%, 2/4). Conclusions: Given the occurrence of cancer during a complex developmental time, AYAs have a relatively high occurrence of psychosocial changes and needs, which we found to be associated with receipt of NCCN guideline concordant care in patients with localized ES and OS. While a limited sample size, as the first study to define specific psychosocial factors that affect receipt of guideline concordant care, these finding suggest the need to improve identification and support of these discrete patient factors.

Sarah Orne Jewett discovered her vocation after attending worship at the Wisconsin Oneida mission in 1872. Her fictionalized account, “Tame Indians” (1875), reveals how liberation from racial stereotypes prompted her to aspire to become a regionalist writer, which helped her fulfill her desire to advocate for diversity by portraying marginalized people as neighbors and fellow Americans.

Although the history of cheesemaking in the United States tells largely a tale of industrialization, there is a submerged yet continuous history of small-batch, hands-on, artisan cheese manufacture. This tradition, carried on in artisan cheese factories across the country, although concentrated in Wisconsin, is often overlooked by a new generation of artisan cheesemakers. Continuities in fabrication methods shared by preindustrial and post-industrial artisan creameries have been obscured by changes in the organization and significance of artisan production over the last one hundred years. Making cheese by hand has morphed from chore to occupation to vocation; from economic trade to expressive endeavor; from a craft to an art. American artisan cheesemaking tradition was invented and reinvented as a tradition of innovation. Indeed, ideological commitment to innovation as modern, progressive, American——and thus a marketable value——further obscures continuities between past and present, artisan factories, and new farmstead production. The social disconnect between the current artisan movement and American's enduring cheesemaking tradition reproduces class hierarchies even as it reflects growing equity in gendered occupational opportunities.

The experience of transitioning into adulthood is a critical phase in life. The navigation of government benefits adds further complexity that can affect employment outcomes for youth with disabilities. Some individuals hesitate to work out of fear to losing access to monetary, disability, and related health care benefits. However, using available work incentives while pursuing employment and career paths can provide opportunities to work and address poverty without forgoing needed services. The Wisconsin Promoting Readiness of Minors in Supplemental Security Income (PROMISE) research grant aimed to positively change youth readiness to work through the use of Motivational Interviewing, work incentive benefits counseling, financial capability building, shifting expectations, and help in navigating transition resources. To measure the impact on readiness to work, 126 transition-age youth receiving supplemental security income (SSI), 188 of their family members, and 411 Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) counselors working with the youth and families completed a modified Stages of Change Scale survey. Results indicated that youths’ work readiness and positive feelings about work significantly increased from baseline to follow-up, along with an increase in employment rates. The implications of these findings highlight the utility of incorporating the stages of change theory into the design and implementation of services and supports to increase work readiness for youth with disabilities in transition.

06–743Amador moreno, Carolina, stephanie o'riordan & angela chambers (U de Extremadura, Spain; camador@unex.es), Integrating a corpus of classroom discourse in language teacher education: The case of discourse markers. ReCALL (Cambridge University Press) 18.1 (2006), 83–104.06–744Arnold, Ewen (U Leeds, UK; mahakand@omantel.net.om), Assessing the quality of mentoring: Sinking or learning to swim?ELT Journal (Oxford University Press) 60.2 (2006), 117–124.06–745Cary, Lisa J. & Stuart Reifel (U Texas-Austin, USA), Cinematic landscapes of teaching: Lessons from a narrative of classic film, Action in Teacher Education (Association of Teacher Educators) 27.3 (2005), 95–109.06–746Commins, Nancy L. & Ofelia B. Miramontes (U Colorado-Boulder, USA), Addressing linguistic diversity from the outset. Journal of Teacher Education (Sage) 57.3 (2006), 240–246.06–747Donnelly, Anna M. (Washington College, USA), Let me show you my portfolio! Demonstrating competence through peer interviews. Action in Teacher Education (Association of Teacher Educators) 27.3 (2005), 55–63.06–748Ellis, Elizabeth Margaret (U New England, Australia; liz.ellis@une.edu.au), Language learning experience as a contributor to ESOL teacher cognition. TESL-EJ (http://www.tesl-ej.org) 10.1 (2006), 26 pp.06–749Ezer, Hanna (Levinsky College of Education, Israel), Shoshy Millet & Dorit Pakin, Multicultural perspectives in the curricula of two colleges of education in Israel: ‘The curriculum is a cruel mirror of our society’. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 12.4 (2006), 391–406.06–750Farrel, Thomas (Brock U, Canada; tfarrell@brocku.ca), The first year of language teaching: Imposing order. System (Elsevier) 34.2 (2006), 211–221.06–751Garrido, Cecilia & Inma Álvarez (The Open U, UK), Language teacher education for intercultural understanding. European Journal of Teacher Education (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 29.2 (2006), 163–179.06–752Goker, Suleyman Davut (Eastern Mediterranean U, Turkey; suleyman.goker@emu.edu.tr), Impact of peer coaching on self-efficacy and instructional skills in TEFL teacher education. System (Elsevier) 34.2 (2006), 239–254.06–753Grant, Carl A. (U Wisconsin-Madison, USA) & Maureen Gillette, A candid talk to teacher educators about effectively preparing teachers who can teach everyone's children. Journal of Teacher Education (Sage) 57.3 (2006), 292–299.06–754Jones, Phyllis (U South Florida, USA; pjones@banshee.sar.usf.edu), Elizabeth West & Dana Stevens, Nurturing moments of transformation in teachers – Comparative perspectives on the challenges of professional development. British Journal of Special Education (Blackwell) 33.2 (2006), 82–90.06–755Kupetz, Rita & Birgit zeigenmeyer (U Hannover, Germany; Rita.Kupetz@anglistik.uni-hannover.de), Flexible learning activities fostering autonomy in teaching training. ReCALL (Cambridge University Press) 18.1 (2006), 63–82.06–756Kwan, Tammy & Francis Lopez-Real (U Hong Kong, China), Mentors' perceptions of their roles in mentoring student teachers. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 33.3 (2005), 275–287.06–757Lenski, Susan Davis (Portland State U, USA), Kathleen Crawford, Thomas Crumpler & Corsandra Stallworth, Preparing pre-service teachers in a diverse world. Action in Teacher Education (Association of Teacher Educators) 27.3 (2005), 3–12.06–758Martin, Andrew J. (U Western Sydney, Australia), The relationship between teachers' perceptions of student motivation and engagement and teachers' enjoyment of and confidence in teaching. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 34.1 (2006), 73–93.06–759Mayer, Diane (U California, USA), The changing face of the Australian teaching profession: New generations and new ways of working and learning. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 34.1 (2006), 57–71.06–760McCormack, Ann, Jennifer Gore & Kaye Thomas (U Newcastle, Australia), Early career teacher professional learning. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 34.1 (2006), 95–113.06–761Olson, Susan J. & Carol Werhan (U Akron, USA), Teacher preparation via on-line learning: A growing alternative for many. Action in Teacher Education (Association of Teacher Educators) 27.3 (2005), 76–84.06–762Otero, Valerie K. (U Colorado-Boulder, USA), Moving beyond the ‘get it or don't’ conception of formative assessment. Journal of Teacher Education (Sage) 57.3 (2006), 240–246.06–763Phelan, Anne M. (U British Columbia, Canada), Russell Sawa, Constance Barlow, Deborah Hurlock, Katherine Irvine, Gayla Rogers & Florence Myrick, Violence and subjectivity in teacher education. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 34.2 (2006), 161–179.06–764Rantz, Frédérique (Kildare Education Centre, Ireland), Exploring intercultural awareness in the primary modern language classroom: The potential of the new model of European language portfolio developed by the Irish Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative (MLPSI). Language and International Communication (Multilingual Matters) 5.3&4 (2005), 209–221.06–765Reid, Jo-Anne & Ninetta Santoro (Charles Sturt U, Australia), Cinders in snow? Indigenous teacher identities in formation. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 34.2 (2006), 143–160.06–766Reis-Jorge, José M. (Instituto Superior de Educação e Ciências, Portugal), Developing teachers' knowledge and skills as researchers: A conceptual framework. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 33.3 (2005), 303–319.06–767Richardson, Paul W. & Helen M. G. Watt (Monash U, Australia), Who chooses teaching and why? Profiling characteristics and motivations across three Australian universities. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 34.1 (2006), 27–56.06–768Romano, Molly (U Arizona, USA), Assessing and meeting the needs of pre-service teachers: A programmatic perspective. Action in Teacher Education (Association of Teacher Educators) 27.3 (2005), 40–54.06–769Ruan, Jiening & Sara Ann Beach (U Oklahoma, USA), Using online peer dialogue journaling to promote reflection in elementary pre-service teachers. Action in Teacher Education (Association of Teacher Educators) 27.3 (2005), 64–75.06–770Shaw, Carla Cooper (Northern Illinois U, USA) & Deborah Dobbins Nederhouser, Reel teachers: References for reflection for real teachers. Action in Teacher Education (Association of Teacher Educators) 27.3 (2005), 85–94.06–771Shin, Sarah (U Maryland Baltimore County, USA), Learning to teach writing through tutoring and journal writing. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 12.3 (2006), 325–345.06–772Smith, Erica (Charles Sturt U, Australia), A rich tapestry: Changing views of teaching and teaching qualifications in the vocational education and training sector. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 33.3 (2005), 339–351.06–773Smith, Kari & Lilach Lev-Ari (Oranim Academic College of Education, Israel), The place of the practicum in pre-service teacher education: The voice of the students. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 33.3 (2005), 289–302.06–774Stern, Lesa A. (Southern Illinois U, USA; Lstern@siue.edu) & Amanda Solomon, Effective faculty feedback: The road less travelled. Assessing Writing (Elsevier) 11.1 (2006), 22–41.06–775Tate, Patricia, Curtis Pyke, Karen Kortecamp (The George Washington U, USA) & CarolMuskin, Developing an ethical orientation toward supervisory practice through collaborative case writing. Action in Teacher Education (Association of Teacher Educators) 27.3 (2005), 13–25.06–776Tin, Tan Bee (U Auckland, New Zealand; tb.tin@auckland.ac.nz), Investigating the nature of ‘interest’ reported by a group of postgraduate students in an MA in English language teacher education programme. System (Elsevier) 34.2 (2006), 222–238.06–777Vick, Malcolm (James Cook U, Australia), ‘It's a difficult matter’: Historical perspectives on the enduring problem of the practicum in teacher preparation. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 34.2 (2006), 181–198.06–778Walsh, Steve (Queens U Belfast, UK), Talking the talk of the TESOL classroom. ELT Journal (Oxford University Press) 60.2 (2006), 133–141.06–779Wasburn-Moses, Leah (Miami U, Ohio, USA), Preparing special educators for secondary positions. Action in Teacher Education (Association of Teacher Educators) 27.3 (2005), 26–39.06–780Wubbels, Theo (Utrecht U, the Netherlands), Perry Den Brok, Letje Veldman&Jan Van Tartvijk, Teacher interpersonal competence for Dutch secondary multicultural classrooms. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 12.4 (2006), 407–433.06–781Yee Fan Tang, Sylvia, May May Hung Cheng & Winnie Wing Mui So (Hong Kong Institute of Education, China), Supporting student teachers' professional learning with standards-referenced assessment. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) 34.2 (2006), 223–244.

Online shopping is all the rage these days and the murderabilia industry in particular, which specializes in selling serial killer artifacts, is booming. At Spectre Studios, sculptor David Johnson sells flexible plastic action figures of Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy and plans to produce a figure of Jack the Ripper in the future. Although some might think that making action figures of serial killers is tasteless, Johnson hastens to assure the potential consumer that he does have standards: “I wouldn’t do Osama bin Laden . . . I have some personal qualms about that” (Robinson). At Serial Killer Central, you can buy a range of items made by serial killers themselves, including paintings and drawings by Angelo Buono (one of the “Hillside Stranglers”) and Henry Lee Lucas. For the more discerning consumer, Supernaught.com charges a mere $300 for a brick from Dahmer’s apartment building, while a lock of Charles Manson’s hair is a real bargain at $995, shipping and handling not included. The sale of murderabilia is just a small part of the huge serial killer industry that has become a defining feature of American popular culture over the last twenty-five years. This industry is, in turn, a prime example of what Mark Seltzer has described as “wound culture,” consisting of a “public fascination with torn and open bodies and torn and opened persons, a collective gathering around shock, trauma, and the wound” (1). According to Seltzer, the serial killer is “one of the superstars of our wound culture” (2) and his claim is confirmed by the constant stream of movies, books, magazines, television shows, websites, t-shirts, and a tsunami of ephemera that has given the figure of the serial murderer an unparalleled degree of visibility and fame in the contemporary American public sphere. In a culture defined by celebrity, serial killers like Bundy, Dahmer and Gacy are the biggest stars of all, instantly recognized by the vast majority of Americans. Not surprisingly, murderabilia has been the focus of a sustained critique by the (usually self-appointed) guardians of ‘decency’ in American culture. On January 2, 2003 The John Walsh Show, the daytime television vehicle of the long-time host of America’s Most Wanted, featured an “inside look at the world of ‘murderabilia,’ which involves the sale of artwork, personal effects and letters from well-known killers” (The John Walsh Show Website). Featured guests included Andy Kahan, Director of the Mayor’s Crime Victim Assistance Office in Houston, Texas; ‘Thomas,’ who was horrified to find hair samples from “The Railroad Killer,” the individual who killed his mother, for sale on the Internet; Elmer Wayne Henley, a serial killer who sells his artwork to collectors; Joe, who runs “Serial Killer Central” and sells murderabilia from a wide range of killers, and Harold Schechter, a professor of English at Queens College, CUNY. Despite the program’s stated intention to “look at both sides of the issue,” the show was little more than a jeremiad against the murderabilia industry, with the majority of airtime being given to Andy Kahan and to the relatives of crime victims. The program’s bias was not lost on many of those who visited Joe’s Serial Killer Central site and left messages on the message board on the day The John Walsh Show aired. There were some visitors who shared Walsh’s perspective. A message from “serialkillersshouldnotprofit@aol.com,” for example, stated that “you will rot in hell with these killers,” while “Smithpi@hotmail.com” had a more elaborate critique: “You should pull your site off the net. I just watched the John Walsh show and your [sic] a fucking idiot. I hope your [sic] never a victim, because if you do [sic] then you would understand what all those people were trying to tell you. You [sic] a dumb shit.” Most visitors, however, sympathized with the way Joe had been treated on the show: “I as well [sic] saw you on the John Walsh show, you should [sic] a lot of courage going on such a one sided show, and it was shit that they wouldnt [sic] let you talk, I would have walked off.” But whether the comments were positive or negative, one thing was clear: The John Walsh Show had created a great deal of interest in the Serial Killer Central site. As one of the messages put it, “I think that anything [sic] else he [John Walsh] has put a spark in everyones [sic] curiousity [sic] . . . I have noticed that you have more hits on your page today than any others [sic].” Apparently, even the most explicit rejection and condemnation of serial killer celebrity finds itself implicated in (and perhaps even unwittingly encouraging the growth of) that celebrity. John Walsh’s attack on the murderabilia industry was the latest skirmish in a campaign that has been growing steadily since the late 1990s. One of the campaign’s initial targets was the internet trading site eBay, which was criticized for allowing serial killer-related products to be sold online. In support of such criticism, conservative victims’ rights and pro-death penalty organizations like “Justice For All” organized online petitions against eBay. In November 2000, Business Week Online featured an interview with Andy Kahan in which he argued that the online sale of murderabilia should be suppressed: “The Internet just opens it all up to millions and millions more potential buyers and gives easy access to children. And it sends a negative message to society. What does it say about us? We continue to glorify killers and continue to put them in the mainstream public. That’s not right” (Business Week). Eventually bowing to public pressure, eBay decided to ban the sale of murderabilia items in May 2001, forcing the industry underground, where it continues to be pursued by the likes of John Walsh. Apart from highlighting how far the celebrity culture around serial killers has developed (so that one can now purchase the nail clippings and hair of some killers, as if they are religious icons), focusing on the ongoing debate around the ethics of murderabilia also emphasizes how difficult it is to draw a neat line between those who condemn and those who participate in that culture. Quite apart from the way in which John Walsh’s censoriousness brought more visitors to the Serial Killer Central site, one could also argue that few individuals have done more to disseminate information about violent crime in general and serial murder in particular to mainstream America than John Walsh. Of course, this information is presented in the unimpeachably moral context of fighting crime, but controversial features of America’s Most Wanted, such as the dramatic recreations of crime, pander to the same prurient public interest in crime that the program simultaneously condemns. An ABCNews.Com article on murderabilia inadvertently highlights the difficulty of distinguishing a legitimate from an illegitimate interest in serial murder by quoting Rick Staton, one of the biggest collectors and dealers of murderabilia in the United States, who emphasizes that the people he sells to are not “ghouls and creeps [who] crawl out of the woodwork”, but rather “pretty much your average Joe Blow.” Even his family, Staton goes on to say, who profess to be disgusted by what he does, act very differently in practice: “The minute they step into this room, they are glued to everything in here and they are asking questions and they are genuinely intrigued by it . . . So it makes me wonder: Am I the one who is so abnormal, or am I pretty normal?” (ABCNews.Com). To answer Staton’s question, we need to go back to 1944, when sociologist Leo Lowenthal published an essay entitled “Biographies in Popular Magazines,” an essay he later reprinted as a chapter in his 1961 book, Literature, Popular Culture And Society, under a new title: “The Triumph of Mass Idols.” Lowenthal argues that biographies in popular magazines underwent a striking change between 1901 and 1941, a change that signals the emergence of a new social type. According to Lowenthal, the earlier biographies indicate that American society’s heroes at the time were “idols of production” in that “they stem from the productive life, from industry, business, and natural sciences. There is not a single hero from the world of sports and the few artists and entertainers either do not belong to the sphere of cheap or mass entertainment or represent a serious attitude toward their art” (112-3). Sampling biographies in magazines from 1941, however, Lowenthal reaches a very different conclusion: “We called the heroes of the past ‘idols of production’: we feel entitled to call the present-day magazine heroes ‘idols of consumption’” (115). Unlike the businessmen, industrialists and scientists who dominated the earlier sample, almost every one of 1941’s heroes “is directly, or indirectly, related to the sphere of leisure time: either he does not belong to vocations which serve society’s basic needs (e.g., the worlds of entertainment and sport), or he amounts, more or less, to a caricature of a socially productive agent” (115). Lowenthal leaves his reader in no doubt that he sees the change from “idols of production” to “idols of consumption” as a serious decline: “If a student in some very distant future should use popular magazines of 1941 as a source of information as to what figures the American public looked to in the first stages of the greatest crisis since the birth of the Union, he would come to a grotesque result . . . the idols of the masses are not, as they were in the past, the leading names in the battle of production, but the headliners of the movies, the ball parks, and the night clubs” (116). With Lowenthal in mind, when one considers the fact that the serial killer is generally seen, in Richard Tithecott’s words, as “deserving of eternal fame, of media attention on a massive scale, of groupies” (144), one is tempted to describe the advent of celebrity serial killers as a further decline in the condition of American culture’s “mass idols.” The serial killer’s relationship to consumption, however, is too complex to allow for such a hasty judgment, as the murderabilia industry indicates. Throughout the edition of The John Walsh Show that attacked murderabilia, Walsh showed clips of Collectors, a recent documentary about the industry. Collectors is distributed by a small company named Abject Films and on their website the film’s director, Julian P. Hobbs, discusses some of the multiple connections between serial killing and consumerism. Hobbs points out that the serial killer is connected with consumerism in the most basic sense that he has become a commodity, “a merchandising phenomenon that rivals Mickey Mouse. From movies to television, books to on-line, serial killers are packaged and consumed en-masse” (Abject Films). But as Hobbs goes on to argue, serial killers themselves can be seen as consumers, making any representations of them implicated in the same consumerist logic: “Serial killers come into being by fetishizing and collecting artifacts – usually body parts – in turn, the dedicated collector gathers scraps connected with the actual events and so, too, a documentary a collection of images” (Abject Films). Along with Rick Staton, Hobbs implies that no one can avoid being involved with consumerism in relation to serial murder, even if one’s reasons for getting involved are high-minded. For example, when Jeffrey Dahmer was murdered in prison in 1994, the families of his victims were delighted but his death also presented them with something of a problem. Throughout the short time Dahmer was in prison, there had been persistent rumors that he was in negotiations with both publishers and movie studios about selling his story. If such a deal had ever been struck, legal restrictions would have prevented Dahmer from receiving any of the money; instead, it would have been distributed among his victims’ families. Dahmer’s murder obviously ended this possibility, so the families explored another option: going into the murderabilia business by auctioning off Dahmer’s property, including such banal items as his toothbrush, but also many items he had used in commission of the murders, such as a saw, a hammer, the 55-gallon vat he used to decompose the bodies, and the refrigerator where he stored the hearts of his victims. Although the families’ motives for suggesting this auction may have been noble, they could not avoid participating in what Mark Pizzato has described as “the prior fetishization of such props and the consumption of [Dahmer’s] cannibal drama by a mass audience” (91). When the logic of consumerism dominates, is anyone truly innocent, or are there just varying degrees of guilt, of implication? The reason why it is impossible to separate neatly ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ expressions of interest in famous serial killers is the same reason why the murderabilia industry is booming; in the words of a 1994 National Examiner headline: “Serial Killers Are as American as Apple Pie.” Christopher Sharrett has suggested that: “Perhaps the fetish status of the criminal psychopath . . . is about recognizing the serial killer/mass murderer not as social rebel or folk hero . . . but as the most genuine representative of American life” (13). The enormous resistance to recognizing the representativeness of serial killers in American culture is fundamental to the appeal of fetishizing serial killers and their artifacts. As Sigmund Freud has explained, the act of disavowal that accompanies the formation of a fetish allows a perception (in this case, the Americanness of serial killers) to persist in a different form rather than being simply repressed (352-3). Consequently, just like the sexual fetishists discussed by Freud, although we may recognize our interest in serial killers “as an abnormality, it is seldom felt by [us] as a symptom of an ailment accompanied by suffering” (351). On the contrary, we are usually, in Freud’s words, “quite satisfied” (351) with our interest in serial killers precisely because we have turned them into celebrities. It is our complicated relationship with celebrities, affective as well as intellectual, composed of equal parts admiration and resentment, envy and contempt, that provides us with a lexicon through which we can manage our appalled and appalling fascination with the serial killer, contemporary American culture’s ultimate star. References ABCNews.Com. “Killer Collectibles: Inside the World of ‘Murderabilia.” 7 Nov. 2001. American Broadcasting Company. 9 May 2003 http://www.abcnews.com>. AbjectFilms.Com. “Collectors: A Film by Julian P. Hobbs.” Abject Films. 9 May 2003 http://www.abjectfilms.com/collectors.html>. BusinessWeek Online. 20 Nov. 2000. Business Week. 9 May 2003 http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_47/b3708056.htm>. Freud, Sigmund. “Fetishism.” On Sexuality. Trans. James Strachey. London: Penguin Books, 1977. 351-7. The John Walsh Show. Ed. Click Active Media. 2 Jan. 2003. 9 May 2003 http://www.johnwalsh.tv/cgi-bin/topics/today/cgi?id=90>. Lowenthal, Leo. “The Triumph of Mass Idols.” Literature, Popular Culture and Society. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1961. 109-40. National Examiner. “Serial Killers Are as American as Apple Pie.” 7 Jun. 1994: 7. Pizzato, Mark. “Jeffrey Dahmer and Media Cannibalism: The Lure and Failure of Sacrifice.” Mythologies of Violence in Postmodern Media. Ed. Christopher Sharrett. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1999. 85-118. Robinson, Bryan. “Murder Incorporated: Denver Sculptor’s Serial Killer Action Figures Bringing in Profits and Raising Ire.” ABCNews.Com 25 Mar. 2002. American Broadcasting Company. 27 Apr. 2003 http://abcnews.com/>. Seltzer, Mark. Serial Killers: Death and Life in America’s Wound Culture. New York: Routledge, 1998. Sharrett, Christopher. “Introduction.” Mythologies of Violence in Postmodern Media. Ed. Christopher Sharrett. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1999. 9-20. Tithecott, Richard. Of Men and Monsters: Jeffrey Dahmer and the Construction of the Serial Killer. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1997. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Schmid, David. "Murderabilia: Consuming Fame." M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/10-schmid.php>. APA Style Schmid, D. (Nov. 2004) "Murderabilia: Consuming Fame," M/C Journal, 7(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/10-schmid.php>.