ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the depictions in media, art, and popular culture of the lives and violent deaths of Nicholls, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes, and Kelly. While there were speculations of more victims at the time, the murders of these five women are generally thought to have been committed by the unknown attacker known only as Jack the Ripper. The chapter argues that the Ripper literature may, broadly speaking, be separated into two main types or perspectives, first the “whodunnit perspective”, and second the “what-does-this-mirror” approach. The case of Jack the Ripper is important because it highlights dilemmas involved in pointing to very real vulnerabilities of and harms towards women who sell sex. Perhaps studying the Ripper case today could also inspire fictions that result in alternatives and potentials that take the vulnerabilities of women who sell sex and bring them out of the shadows.
