English 507-001
Studies in Literature, 1900 to the Present: Detective Fiction
Instr: Levine, Caroline
Office: CRT 496; 229-6402
e-mail: clevine@wisc.edu
Office hours: TBA
Course Information:TR; 3:30-4:45pm; CRT 124
Course Description
We've gotten used to being entertained by murder. From Hercule Poirot to The Shield, detectives have cornered the market on popular culture. But how did our culture get so comfortable with sinister butlers, hardboiled cops, red herrings, and private eyes? What kinds of people detect, and what kinds of readers respond to detection? And how, exactly, does the detective arrive at a convincing knowledge of the crime? Some scholars argue that detective fiction is an intrinsically conservative form, reassuring us that all anarchic and disruptive social forces will eventually be brought to justice; others claim that detectives have changed radically over the course of two centuries, and that now they are as likely to be as lawless as the criminals. We'll look for answers to these questions by reading short stories by such writers as Poe, Conan Doyle, Hammett, Chandler, Barnes, and Borges and several novels: The Woman in White, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Cotton Comes to Harlem, and Arrows of Rain. We'll also watch the first season of HBO's series, The Wire. And we'll read about historians, philosophers, scientists, and literary critics who have taken the fictional detective seriously as a model for their own quest for knowledge.
