Twentieth-Century Genre: The Case of the Detective, Spring 2024

Detective fiction, probably the single most-read and best-selling category of fiction across the whole of the last century, nonetheless occupies a marginal place in standard literary-historical accounts. What does fiction since 1900 look like from the perspective of this commercial genre? What does genre—usually considered from the heights of “the lyric” and “the novel”—look like from the perspective of this genre? This course proposes a literary history of the Anglo-American detective story, with a special emphasis on the evolving institutions of genre fiction and the changing forms of cultural capital. At the same time we will reconsider the theory of genre, focusing on the challenge to classic accounts from the sociology of culture. The goal is less to unlock the mysteries of mystery than to explore the methodological demands of an mass-cultural literary phenomenon: not only its texts but its readers, writers, and publishers.

Detailed syllabus: syllabus.pdf.

This page last updated: April 11, 2024.

• January 22. Introduction.

  • In class: Conan Doyle, “A Case of Identity.”
  • In class: Aristotle, Poetics, 1447a–b29 (§1).

• January 29. Precursors/category errors.

  • Edgar Allan Poe, “Murders in the Rue Morgue” (or read in 1845 Tales).

  • Poe, “The Purloined Letter” (or read in 1845 Tales).

  • Aristotle, Poetics, 1447a–1452b13 (§1–11) (to explore the Greek, use Perseus).

  • Frow, Genre, chap. 1 (and optionally chap. 3).

  • Gérard Genette, The Architext, 1–49.

• February 5. Rivals.

  • Selections from Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes: Selected Stories:

    • The Sign of the Four.
    • “A Scandal in Bohemia.”
    • “The Six Napoleons.”
    • Compare magazine publications: Sign in Lippincott’s 45, no. 2 (February 1890); “Scandal” in Strand 2, no. 1 (June 1891); “Six Napoleons” in Strand 27 (May 1904).

  • C. L. Pirkis, “The Redhill Sisterhood” (e-text; BBC Radio, 2005).

  • Franco Moretti, “The Slaughterhouse of Literature.”

  • In class: anti-DH.

• February 12. Golden.

  • Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
  • “The Detection Club Oath.”
  • S. S. Van Dine, “Twenty Rules for Detective Stories.”
  • Ronald Knox’s decalogue.
  • Todorov, “The Typology of Detective Fiction” (original: “Typologie du roman policier”).
  • In class: database expedition no. 1.

• February 19. Pulps.

  • “Sergeant Ryan,” “The Mysterious Highwayman.”
  • Chapin, “Through the Dragon’s Valley.”
  • Carroll John Daly, “Knights of the Open Palm.”
  • Dashiell Hammett, “Crooked Souls.”
  • Sean McCann, Gumshoe America, chap. 1.
  • John Rieder, Science Fiction, chap. 2.
  • In class: physical objects.

• February 26. Formula.

  • “Carolyn Keene,” The Secret of the Old Clock.
  • Benson, “The Ghost of Ladora.”
  • Johnson, “From Paragraphs to Pages,” in Rediscovering Nancy Drew, ed. Dyer and Romalov.
  • Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery, and Romance, chap. 1.
  • Chandler, The Big Sleep, chaps. 1–11 (to get ahead).

• March 4. Style.

  • Chandler, The Big Sleep.

    • Optional: Chandler, “The Simple Art of Murder.”

  • Jameson, Raymond Chandler, chap. 2.

  • Smith, Hard-Boiled, chap. 3.

  • Norman, “The Big Empty.”

• March 18. Excess.

  • Himes, Cotton Comes to Harlem.
  • Denning, “Topographies of Violence.”
  • In class: database expedition no. 2.

• (Friday, March 22.)

  • Narrative bibliography due.

• March 25. Genre feminism?

  • James, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman.
  • Horsley, Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction, 242–62.
  • Griswold, “A Methodological Framework for the Sociology of Culture.”
  • DiMaggio, “Classification in Art.”

• April 1. Theory in focus.

  • Bourdieu, The Rules of Art, 114–25, 214–56.
  • Frow, Genre, chaps. 4, 6.
  • Altman, Film/Genre, chaps. 3–5, 7.
  • Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, chaps. 1–10 (to get ahead).

• April 8. North.

  • Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Sure, it’s a lot.
  • Berglund, “Genres at Work.”

• (Wednesday, April 10, at 12 p.m.)

  • Book Initiative event: Kalle Berglund (Uppsala) and Justin Tackett (Warwick) on the history and future of audiobooks, Murray 302.

• April 15. Contemporary publishing.

  • Wilkins, Driscoll, and Fletcher, Genre Worlds, chap. 1.
  • Thompson, Merchants of Culture, introduction and chap. 5 (and optionally chap. 4).
  • Thompson, Book Wars, introduction and chaps. 1 and 7 (and optionally chap. 6).

• (Thursday, April 18, at 4:30 p.m. in AB 6501)

  • John Thompson (Cambridge), Ana Cecilia Calle (Universidad Javeriana, Colombia), and Gustavo Guerrero (CY Cergy Paris) on independent publishing.

• (Friday, April 19, at 12 p.m. in MU 302.)

  • Discussion of Book Wars with Thompson and AG.

• April 22. Literary.

  • Everett, Assumption. Don’t stop short of the spectacular ending.

  • Rosen, “Literary Fiction and the Genres of Genre Fiction.”

  • Lizardo and Skiles, “Reconceptualizing and Theorizing ‘Omnivorousness.’”

    • Bonus quantitative application: Lizardo, “From Macrogenres to Microgenres via Relationality.”

• April 29. Parting shots.

  • Students’ informal remarks on work in progress.
  • McGurl, Everything and Less, introduction and chap. 1.
  • Underwood, Distant Horizons, chap. 2.
  • Childress et al., “Genres, Objects, and the Contemporary Expression of Higher-Status Tastes.”

• (Monday, May 20.)

  • Paper due to the graduate office.