Literature of Crime and Detection

Literature of Crime and Detection is a Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies course taught by Jeffrey Wallen.

This course satisfies Division I requirements.

Course Description
In this class we will explore the appeal of the detective story. Why has the detection of crime become so fascinating for readers during the last 150 years? What do these stories reveal to us about the nature of narrative and plot, about cultural anxieties and the possibilities of justice? We will focus on the detective as a reader (both of texts and of the world), as a social phenomenon, and as a literary construct. We will look at both "analytic" detective stories (Poe, Agatha Christie, Borges), and at ones featuring a "hard-boiled" detective (Hammett, Chandler, Chester Himes, Paco Ignacio Taibo II). We will read critical essays exploring formal and socio-cultural aspects of detective fiction, study detective stories from many parts of the world, and see some films. We may also read works that use the detective story as the point of departure, such as Paul Auster's City of Glass.