Comparative Literature 339 - Int'lCrime,Mystery&DetectveFic

Through suspenseful narratives, crime fiction develops the meanings and envisions the social locations of crime and punishment, good and evil, and order and disorder. In this course, we will explore this genre?s thematics, protagonists, and rhetorics of place as ways of problematizing social identity (class, gender, race, ethnicity, indigeneity, sexuality), morality, and the limits of transgression. We will compare the narratives, tropes, and characteristic figures of related genres such as the early social survey and muckraking journalism (such as Henry Mayhew and Jacob Riis). We will also ask how the genre has traveled and been reimagined and reinterpreted in popular culture as radio, film, television, plays, visual culture, and licensed products. We will read selected classic and contemporary crime fiction authors from around the world, including novels, novellas, and short stories. (Gen. Ed. AL, DG)