Abstract
On the streets of Whitechapel, London, independent tour guides are operating where official heritage organizations will not tread. The East End has recently experienced a rapid proliferation of thanatourism in the form of Ripper tours and a Ripper ‘museum’. This essay offers a survey and account of this Ripper tourism. Its central concern is with the Ripper tours, which it considers as street theatre. The essay looks at the narrative and performance modes guides draw on to negotiate their highly contentious subject matter, and considers the tours’ complex relation to the Gothic.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Robert Lee, David Short, Catherine Spooner , Herbie Treehead, Joy Bariana, Ayesha Taylor and Natalie Wall.
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McEvoy, E. (2018). ‘I Hate This Job’: Guiding Ripper Tours in the East End. In: Jones, K., Poore, B., Dean, R. (eds) Contemporary Gothic Drama. Palgrave Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95359-2_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95359-2_9
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