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Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction (U01486)

? Credit Points : 20 ? SCQF Level : 10 ? Acronym : LLC-3-U01486

The course examines the crime narrative as a highly influential and socially embedded popular cultural form in Britain and the United States. Given that the central figure is someone undertaking a circumscribed interpretative task, crime fiction grants us insights into the representations of gender, class, race, politics and political institutions, science, and interpretation itself throughout the twentieth century. This course offers students the opportunity to study several representative examples of the genre in order to examine the ways in which issues of central importance in the humanities and social sciences have been represented in the popular domain.

Entry Requirements

? Costs : Essential course texts

Variants

? This course has variants for part year visiting students, as follows

Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction (VS1) (Semester 2 (Blocks 3-4))

Subject Areas

Home subject area

English Literature, (School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, Schedule G)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : 3rd year

? Delivery Period : Semester 2 (Blocks 3-4)

? Contact Teaching Time : 2 hour(s) per week for 10 weeks

? Other Required Attendance : 1 hour(s) per week for 10 weeks

First Class Information

Date	Start	End	Room	Area	Additional Information
13/01/2006	14:00	15:50	Room 6.11, David Hume Tower	Central

All of the following classes

Type	Day	Start	End	Area
Lecture	Friday	14:00	15:50	Central

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

Students will appreciate a comprehensive range of texts that trace the transformations of the genre over the past century - such as detective novel, hardboiled and noir thriller, the police procedural, the conspiracy thriller and serial murder texts. The course discusses how crime as a connective tissue helps us narrate certain aspects of our society and allows students to ascertain whether the genre is an inherently conservative or subversive cultural form. Finally, the course confronts us as readers and critics with the question of whether we are in the position of the detective or the criminal.