Jonathan Fast's CEREMONIAL VIOLENCE Looks at the Tragedy of Rampage Shootings

Yesterday's tragic news in Geneva County, Alabama and today's shocking school shooting in Winnenden, Germany raises many questions about rampage shootings, which are becoming an all too familiar news headline. Jonathan Fast, Associate Professor of Research at the Wurzwelier School of Social Work, Yeshivia University, addressed many of these complex issues in his groundbreaking study of school rampage shooting, Ceremonial Violence.

Jonathan Fast's CEREMONIAL VIOLENCE Reviewed in The Brooklyn Rail

Jonathan Fast's Ceremonial Violence: A Psychological Examination of School Shootings, is reviewed by Nicole Robson in the November issue of The Brooklyn Rail: "Readers looking for a clean-cut, definitive answer to why school rampage shootings occur will be disappointed. Fast acknowledges a multitude of variables, from malignant narcissism to identity confusion and mental disturbances, which contribute to a child committing mass murder and, in most cases, suicide. Yet the book distinguishes itself from mainstream media coverage by delving deeper not only into the candidates’ psyches, but also the social and historical context of the communities within which these tragedies took place."

Education Week Examines the CEREMONIAL VIOLENCE of School Rampage Shootings

Education Week, has posted a rcview of Ceremonial Violence, Jonathan Fast's study of school rampage shootings in their current issue: " Is there such a thing as a "typical" teenage school shooter? After six years of researching such students and their crimes, Fast, a professor of social work at Yeshiva University in New York City, offers a qualified yes. He examines "school rampage" killings—attacks that occur on school grounds, are perpetrated by an adolescent, and have at least two victims apart from the attacker—and finds 13 cases from 1974 to 1999, which he profiles, six of them in great detail. (Similar instances falling outside the author's framework, such as the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting committed by a 23-year-old, are also discussed, but with less depth.) Fast compares the shooters in these rampages and discovers several common qualities: The student (nearly always male) had an unhappy childhood, usually was bullied, and often feels like a misfit in his family and/or community; he has a best friend who encourages the violent behavior, sometimes coaching him; he seeks attention, choosing to turn a suicide into a public event; and, once he has made his plans, he "announces" them, such as by telling others or recording them in a journal. The staging ofthe crimes is what make them "ceremonial"—one perpetrator Fast describes even played background music on a portable tape recorder during his assault. Among those profiled extensively are Eric Harris and Dylan Heboid, the students responsible for the Columbine High School shootings, as well as Brenda Spencer, a 16-year-old girl at the time of her crime. Fast concludes with recommendations for preventing such attacks and dealing with the aftermath, but the book focuses primarily on understanding the psychology of teenage shooters."

Meet Jonathan Fast, author of CEREMONIAL VIOLENCE, at Barnes & Noble in NYC on October 1

Jonathan Fast, author of Ceremonial Violence: A Psychological Explanation of School Shootings, will discuss his new book at Barnes & Noble in Greenwich Village on Wednesday, October 1, at 7:30pm. Recently featured in Salon, Time, and New York Times Book Review, Fast's Ceremonial Violence examines the motives behind these shocking acts of violence.

Salon on Jonathan Fast's CEREMONIAL VIOLENCE

Salon's Laura Miller takes a look at what turns an angry, alienated teen into a school shooter in her penetrating review of Jonathan Fast's new book Ceremonial Violence: "School shootings, at least those that kill only one or two people, have come to seem almost commonplace. The killing of one 15-year-old by another 15-year-old in a Knoxville, Tenn., high school cafeteria on Aug. 21 barely registered on the national radar screen. In order to make a name for himself, any malignantly narcissistic adolescent with a dream will need to aim for a body count in at least the low two-figures. Gun control opponents assure us that allowing teachers (and even students) to carry guns will help the situation by enabling potential victims to defend themselves against the likes of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. The Supreme Court seems inclined to oblige them, and perhaps regular shootouts will become a high school rite of passage, just like the prom and smoking behind the gym. Deeper, more systemic repairs to our culture will be harder to come by. Like the bullying prevention programs Fast describes in the final chapter of "Ceremonial Violence," such measures demand "attentiveness, self-scrutiny, consistency, detachment, and dogged attention to detail." And that sure just doesn't sound very American."

Jonathan Fast's CEREMONIAL VIOLENCE in Time Magazine

Jonathan Fast's Ceremonial Violence is reviewed in the current issue of Time magazine: "School shootings are among the most shocking acts of violence in modern America, and yet the one question asked by every parent and survivor--Why?--has rarely been systematically approached. Fast, a professor of social work at Yeshiva University, examines five case studies from 1974 to 1999--spending most of his time on 1999's Columbine massacre--hoping to figure out what drives young perpetrators to mass murder. Unfortunately, the motives are as varied as they are tragic: while Fast faults easy access to powerful firearms as a constant factor, sexual abuse, mental illness, broken homes and social isolation have all played a part in one rampage or another. Fast regards school shootings as "acts of terrorism without an ideological core" and believes that trying to predict them is largely futile. Most warning signs are overlooked or--in the case of one 16-year-old who advised his classmates on the best seats from which to view his killing spree--dismissed. The book is worth reading, if only as a reminder that the shooters, in some ways, are victims too."

Library Journal Recommends Jonathan Fast's CEREMONIAL VIOLENCE

Jonathan Fast's new book Ceremonial Violence is reviewed in the current issue of Library Journal: "Fast, a novelist as well as a professor of social work (Yeshiva Univ.), explores the psychological roots of school violence through in-depth case studies of six young shooters, including Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine High. While the author hypothesizes that all of the shooters see their acts as cleansing and elevating rituals, he shows that there is no single underlying situation—parental neglect or low IQ, for example—that invariably led these young people into difficulty. Most of these teens felt alienated from their peers, although some seem to have been goaded into action by groups of aggressive so-called friends who pushed them to commit violent acts. The case studies are compelling; fans of true crime will like the book as pure narrative, while parents and educators will appreciate the suggestions for identifying potentially violent students. This is a good companion to Katherine S. Newman and others' Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings, which explores the same situations from a sociological viewpoint. Recommended for all academic and most public libraries."

Jonathan Fast's CEREMONIAL VIOLENCE Receives Starred Review in Publishers Weekly

Jonathan Fast's important new book, Ceremonial Violence: A Psychological Explanation of School Shootings, receives a Starred Review in this week's Publishers Weekly: "In this penetrating examination of the nation's school shootings, Fast, a professor of social work at Yeshiva University, explores such psychological theories as identity confusion and childhood abuse. Outlining 13 incidents, Fast concentrates on five between 1979 and the 1999 Columbine shootings. Each shooting is described in unflinching detail, from 16-year-old Brenda Spencer's declaration that her hatred of Mondays led her to kill two adults and wound eight children at a San Diego elementary school, to 16-year-old Luke Woodham's brutal matricide before killing two students and wounding six more at his high school. Avoiding simplistic labels, Fast builds a psychological profile of each teen, weighing upbringing and prior history of violence. His meticulously detailed portrait of Columbine's Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold anchors the work, and Fast dissects not only the boys themselves but the culture of Columbine as a school and Littleton, Colo., as a community. Although not a book about solutions, it is not without hope. Fast recognizes the impossibility of predicting school rampage shooters, but outlines clear and realistic goals for educators, community leaders, parents and students that could help prevent these violent attacks."