Module Identifier EN34720  
Module Title DETECTIVE AND CRIME FICTION  
Academic Year 2002/2003  
Co-ordinator Mr Michael J Smith  
Semester Semester 2  
Course delivery Seminars / Tutorials   20 Hours Seminar. 10 x 2 hrs seminar workshops  
Assessment Semester Assessment   Continuous Assessment: 2 essays (2,500 words each)   100%  
  Supplementary Assessment   Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements.    

Brief description

Literature which deals with crime and detection has a long history - the Book of Genesis, the Oedipus stories, Hamlet etc. This module looks at the more formalised presentation of crime and its detection since the nineteenth century; at a self-conscious body of writing with its own conventions and generic 'laws' (usually laid down only to be ingeniously broken). The texts are chosen so as to offer an introduction to some of the main styles and sites of crime fiction from the country house mysteries of Agatha Christie to the 1990s urban desolation of Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus novels - and to give some sense of the genre's historical development and its responsiveness to cultural change. Several of the selected novels have been made into films (The Big Sleep, The Ministry of Fear, The Tiger in the Smoke, A Judgement in Stone (as La Cérémonie) and, most recently, The Talented Mr Ripley) while a TV dramatisation of Black and Blue is due to be screened in April 2000). When possible, and subject to availability, we will consider the books alongside the screen versions. Weekly two-hour seminars will be in a variety of formats, often but not always requiring student presentations..

Content

Weekly two-hour seminars will be in a variety of formats, often but not always requiring student presentations.

Week:

1. The Age of the Great Detective: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)

2. The Golden Age: Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)

3. Hardboiled: Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (1939)

4. Greene and Noir: Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear (1943)

5. Romance: Margery Allingham, The Tiger in the Smoke (1952)

6. Anti-Romance: Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr Ripley (1955)

7. The Whydunnit: Ruth Rendell, A Judgement in Stone (1977)

8. Postmodern Crime: Michael Dibdin, Cabal (1992)

9. The Lesbian Sleuth: Stella Duffy, Beneath the Blonde (1997)

10. Tartan Noir: Ian Rankin, Black and Blue (1997)

Besides the stories and novels listed above, students will find the following useful as introductory reading:
John G. Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture (1976)
Julian Symons, Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel: A History (1971)

There is a great deal of useful material on the web. Two of the most interesting sites are Tangled Web UK, address:
http://www.twbooks.co.uk/authors/authorpagelist.html
and the Guardian's Books Unlimited site - address for the Crime section of this: http://www.booksunlimited.co.uk/departments/crime/front/0,6000,95683,00.html