Seminar in Reading and Interpretation (300-0-20)
Topic
Detective Fiction
Instructors
Kathryn Sydney Evans
Meeting Info
University Hall 418: Mon, Wed 9:30AM - 10:50AM
Overview of class
Detective novels have often been classed dismissively as mere "genre fiction" unsuitable for academic study. But the "close reading" that we prize so highly as literary scholars might be understood as a linguistic form of detection: the ability to notice and interpret small linguistic clues that can help to unlock a "solution"—that is to say, a full and nuanced understanding—of a narrative. This course will survey influential works of detective fiction as literary artifacts in their own right, but also as potential handbooks for what Eve Sedgwick calls the "paranoid reading" that so often propels literary analysis. In other words, we will consider detective fiction as meta-literary commentary on the challenges of reading and interpretation. Reading assignments will include weekly novels, literary criticism and theory of detective fiction, and meta-theory about the theory and practice of literary analysis as a field and as a set of interpretive habits and skills.
Teaching Method
Seminar discussion, brief introductory lectures (often as Canvas videos to be viewed before class), group discussion and peer review.
Evaluation Method
Participation (online and in class); frequent short writing assignments; final essay; peer evaluation and self evaluation.
Class Materials (Required)
John Hodgman, ed., Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essay ISBN: 0312089457
Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep ISBN: 0804168881
Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins ISBN: 0393925358
Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night ISBN: 0062196537
Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express ISBN: 0062073494
Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train ISBN: 0393351939
Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress ISBN: 1982150343
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 ISBN: 006091307X
Henning Mankell, Faceless Killers ISBN:1400031575
Additional readings will be available on Canvas. Students are welcome to use alternate editions.
Texts will be available at: Norris bookstore.
Class Attributes
Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area