Undergraduate Course: The Great Detectives (LLLG07018)
Course Outline
| School | Centre for Open Learning |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 7 (Year 1 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | This is a for-credit course offered by the Office of Lifelong Learning (OLL); only students registered with OLL should be enrolled.
For this exploration of the great detectives of Scotland, we begin with Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, considering the role of Utterson as detective. From there we shall investigate the impact of Stevenson's novel on other Scottish detective novels, including Josephine Tey's The Singing Sands, William McIlvanney's second Laidlaw novel and Iain Banks' "perfect murder" in The Crow Road. We will end up in Glasgow with Denise Mina's Garnethill and an unreliable witness or is she a murderer? |
| Course description |
This course provides an insight into the development of Scottish detective fiction. You will explore the development of the genre through key texts, looking at how authors have used the figure of the detective to explore wider themes such as social change, anxiety about reliability and the search for answers to a puzzle. Guidance will be provided weekly of our focus points for discussion and additional resources will be available on our course website. By the end of the class, students will have a wider understanding of the development of the figure of the great detective in a Scottish context.
No previous knowledge of the subject needed. Previous students on this strand will enjoy returning to study a new reading list.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
| The students will learn skills of close analysis of text and group discussion as well as how to explore the relationship between detective fiction and modern culture. In addition they will have a clearer idea of the development of the genre from Poe and Doyle to the present day.
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Reading List
Essential:
Stevenson, R. L. (2008) Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Oxford: Oxford World¿s Classics.
Tey, J. (2011) The Singing Sands. London: Arrow Books.
McIlvanney, W. (2021) The Papers of Tony Veitch. Edinburgh: Canongate.
Banks, I. (2017) The Crow Road. London: Abacus.
Mina, D. (2018) Garnethill. London: Vintage.
Recommended:
Priestman, M. ed. (2003) The Cambridge Companion to Detective Fiction. Cambridge: CUP.
Scaggs, J. (2005) Crime Fiction. London: Routledge.
Plain, Gill. (2001) Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Nickerson, C. ed. (2010) The Cambridge Companion to American Crime Fiction. Cambridge: CUP.
Carruthers, G. & McIlvanney, L. eds. (2012) The Cambridge companion to Scottish literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Mr Douglas Dougan
Tel:
Email: ddougan@exseed.ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr John Ethcuit
Tel: (0131 6)50 3409
Email: jethcuit@exseed.ed.ac.uk |
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