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Seminar in Reading and Interpretation (300-0-20)

Topic

Murder on the Bestseller List

Instructors

Clay Ross Cogswell

Meeting Info

Parkes Hall 213: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

Recent bestsellers such as The Girl on the Train and My Sister, the Serial Killer are part of a long legacy of wildly popular murder mysteries. In the early nineteenth century, murder, madness, and illicit sexuality were often confined to remote Gothic castles or the wilds of the English moors. With the rise of detective stories in the United States and sensation fiction in Britain, however, these middle-class nightmares invaded the supposedly blissful domestic scene. Writers also started to use murder as an occasion to pose radical questions about which deaths are considered "grievable." Beginning with bestselling authors Edgar Allen Poe and Wilkie Collins, this seminar follows the transatlantic tradition forward through Pauline Hopkins (author of the first Black murder mystery), mid-twentieth-century thrillers by Patricia Highsmith, and cutting-edge work by Percival Everett. Paying particular attention to how gender and race shape the narration of these tales, the course will conclude with a survey of twenty-first-century chart-toppers by Paula Hawkins, Oyinkan Braithwaite, and others. Readings will be supplemented with films, including the 2016 adaptation of The Girl on the Train.

Teaching Method

Seminar discussion.

Evaluation Method

Essays and class participation.

Class Materials (Required)

Braithwaite, My Sister, the Serial Killer; Hawkins, The Girl on the Train.

Texts will be available at: Norris.