Sofia Bull

Midwives, medicine and natural births: Female agency in Scandinavian birthing shows

This article examines how the often juxtaposed concepts ‘natural birth’ and ‘medically assisted birth’ figure in Jordemødrene, Barnmorskorna and En unge i minuten: three Scandinavian documentary programmes depicting midwifery and childbirth. Through comparisons between US and UK birthing shows, the study considers the socio-historically specific construction of birthing practices and the figure of the midwife. Non-invasive approaches to labour are celebrated as symbols of an essential ‘women’s culture’ that asserts female agency, but medical technology and pain medication also figure as potential tools for female empowerment, thus rendering the midwife a malleable figurehead for multiple strands of feminism.

From crime lab to mind palace: post-CSI forensics in Sherlock

Abstract This article examines the complex relationship between Sherlock (BBC, 2010–present) and the forensic crime drama genre category. Tracing the televisual genre linkages that Sherlock articulates to previous programmes such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS, 2000–2015), Bones (Fox, 2005–present) and Numb3rs (CBS, 2005–2010), it specifically studies the show’s need to distinguish itself within a television landscape oversaturated with forensic scientists. Discussing Sherlock’s construction of the deductive method of investigation and genre subversive portrayal of the figure of the modern forensic expert, as well as its figuration of the consulting detective as an establishment watchdog, I conclude that this is a ‘post-CSI’ crime drama that stages a nostalgic resurrection of a pre-forensics cerebral gentleman detective.

Extreme Makeover CSI Edition: Tracing the Forensic Crime Drama's Engagement with Identity Crimes, Plastic Bodies and Self-Transformation Narratives

This article examines discourses on identity and bodily plasticity in the forensic crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–). It argues that CSI engages with the same cultural debates as makeover reality TV, but in ways that articulate a number of oppositional perspectives on self-transformation practices governed by the programmes investment in an essentialist and determinist understanding of genetics. The article traces CSIs reconfiguration of the motif of disguise and inverted use of generic tropes from makeover reality TV, as well as its tendency to worry about the increased possibilities for biomedical alterations of our bodies. It concludes that the programme problematises self-transformation practices as a new type of ‘identity crime’.