Introduction to Crime Fiction, Spring 2025

Crime fiction has been the most popular of all fiction genres for the last hundred years. But why does anyone care which made-up person killed which other made-up person? These stories explore the difference between the law and justice, between how things should be and how things are, between deviance and normality. These are serious subjects, but crime fiction is rarely serious literature: our study will also be a study of the boundaries between what is supposedly mere entertainment and what is supposedly literary art. Students will learn how to analyze a genre both in its own terms and in terms of social and historical developments. We will be doggedly serious about pulpy shoot-em-ups. We will study both genre landmarks and now-forgotten texts, ranging across American, British, and postcolonial Anglophone writers. Students are not expected to guess who did it before the end, but in at least one case, the culprit will be capitalism.

Detailed syllabus (pdf).

Last updated: March 19, 2025.

• Thursday, January 23. Introduction. (slides) (handout)

  • In class: assumptions and clues.
  • The first “Dick Tracy” strip (Chester Gould Museum).

• Monday, January 27. A Class Peculiar to Mr. Poe. (slides)

  • Poe, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”
    • For explanatory notes, refer to www.eapoe.org/works/mabbott/tom2t043.htm.

• Thursday, January 30. Good Night, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. (slides)

  • Conan Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia.”
  • Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons.”

• Monday, February 3. A Lady Detective. (slides)

  • Pirkis, “The Redhill Sisterhood.”

• Thursday, February 6. Pulp Fiction. (slides)

  • Study Detective Story Magazine, January 5, 1917:

    • Read: Kurowski, “Detective Story Magazine” on pulpmags.org.
    • Read: Anthony, “Sinking Sands” and Smith, “The ‘Snitch’”.
    • Make notes on: what different kinds of items are in the issue?
    • Make notes on: what do the contents tell you about readers?

• Monday, February 10. Theory day. (slides)

  • Moretti, “The Slaughterhouse of Literature”.
  • Frow, Genre, 6–19, 134–41.

• (Tuesday, February 11.)

  • Exercise due: get a clue.

• Thursday, February 13. Hard-boiled beginnings. (slides)

  • Daly, “Knights of the Open Palm.”
  • Hammett, “Crooked Souls.”
  • Hammett, “Suggestions to Detective Story Writers.”

• Monday, February 17. The real thing. (slides)

  • Hammett, “Crooked Souls,” continued.
  • Todorov, “The Typology of Detective Fiction.”

• Thursday, February 20. Stylin’. (slides by Anthony Tello)

  • Chandler, The Big Sleep, 3–54. (through chap. 10).
  • Chandler, “The Simple Art of Murder”.

• Monday, February 24. What is a man? (slides)

  • The Big Sleep, 3–126. (through chap. 20).
  • Exercise due: motive (academic kind).

• Thursday, February 27. Something doesn’t add up with this guy. (slides)

  • The Big Sleep, 3–169. (through chap. 25).

• Monday, March 3. For great justice. (slides)

  • The Big Sleep, complete.
  • McCann, Gumshoe America, 166–70.

• (Wednesday, March 5.)

  • Paper 1 due.

• Thursday, March 6. Filming the hard-boiled. (slides)

  • Hawkes, dir., The Big Sleep. Watch on Swank via Canvas.

• Monday, March 10. Postmodernism, or, soft-boiled detection. (slides)

  • Borges, “Death and the Compass” (or read in Spanish, also on Canvas).

• Thursday, March 13.

  • Midterm exam in class.

• (Saturday, March 15. Spring recess.)

• Monday, March 24. Finding ourselves. (slides)

  • Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Petals of Blood, 1–79.

    • Some annotations to the novel.
    • Some historical and linguistic coordinates.

  • Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, “Petals of Love.”

• Thursday, March 27. When? (slides)

  • Petals of Blood, 1–141 (all of Part One).

• Monday, March 31. The MESSAGE. (slides)

  • Petals of Blood, 1–188.

• Thursday, April 3. Discourses and rhetoric.

  • Petals of Blood, 1–270.

• Monday, April 7. (Class to be made up.)

  • Petals of Blood, 1–308.
  • Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Decolonising the Mind, 1–16, 20–27.

• Thursday, April 10. Who speaks, in which tongue? (slides)

  • Petals of Blood, 1–308.
  • Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Decolonising the Mind, 1–16, 20–27.

• Monday, April 14. Mystery solved! (slides)

  • Petals of Blood, complete.

• Thursday, April 17. Who joins the conversation? (slides)

  • Gikandi, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, 134–59.
  • Roos, “Re-Historicizing the Conflicted Figure of Woman.”
  • Exercise due in class: response to critical reading.

• Monday, April 21. What time is it again? (slides)

  • Devil in a Blue Dress, chaps. 1–10.

• Thursday, April 24. The worst kind of racism. (slides)

  • Devil in a Blue Dress, chaps. 1–20.

• (Friday, April 25.)

  • Exercise due: Paper 2 pre-writing.

• Monday, April 28. The question of the question of race. (slides)

  • Devil in a Blue Dress, complete.

  • Optional: the film adaptation.

• Thursday, May 1. Murder is hilarious. (slides)

  • Knives Out. Watch on Swank via Canvas.

• Monday, May 5. Conclusion. (slides)

  • Knives Out.

• Thursday, May 8, 9:30 to 11.

  • Final exam (in person). Ninety minutes only.

• (Sunday, May 11.)

  • Paper 2 due.