English 382 - SEM:READING AMERICAN LITERATUR

Topics Course Discussion of the relation between the "hard-boiled" school of American writing?from Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler in the 1930s to Dorothy B. Hughes and Patricia Highsmith in 1950?and the film genre that emerged when these works were adapted for the screen. The films of such directors as John Huston, Michael Curtiz, Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray, and Alfred Hitchcock will be discussed, with some attention to the Neo-Noir phenomenon of the 1970s (Roman Polanski) and after. Topics will include the popular reception of such bleak and violent narratives, their capacity for disruption and social critique, their extreme representations of misogyny and patriarchy, their distinctive styles and aesthetic principles, their European sources, and their inbreeding effects on one another.

Topic: Film Noir and American Fiction, 1930-1950. Instructor Permission. Not open to first-years, sophomores