Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 1 session / week, 1.5 hours / session
Overview
This course consists of readings in the history of the form of the detective story, from the 19th-century to the present. It involves studies in questions of knowing, from materialist puzzles through metaphysical meditations to elegant whimsy, from murder in an English country village to crowned jewels buried in a footnote.
Attendance
Because we’ll do much of the work of this subject through discussions, naturally I’ll expect you to be actively here during class and to practice the skills of a good participant: informed attention, preparation, helpful contribution, talking, assimilation, generous and intelligent listening, and mutual respect.
Readings
Do all the readings. We’ll have quizzes every week or so. Results of those quizzes account for ca. 25% of the final grade.
Quizzes and Exam
Frequent quizzes; short final exercise.
Grades
| ACTIVITIES | WEIGHTS |
|---|---|
| In class work, including seminar skills | 2/3 |
| Written work, quizzes, and exam | 1/3 |
Calendar
| Lec # | Topics |
|---|---|
| 1 |
High Art, Hermenutics, Detection, and Suspense Modes: Oedipus and Theseus Typology: The Hidden Treasure, The Locked Room, the Detective-as-Suspect |
| 2 |
Nature and Hieroglyphics Ideograms Cryptography as Process and as Metaphor |
| 3 |
Doubling Self-Consciousness as Method and Disguise Materialism, Claustrophobic Homes, Locked Rooms |
| 4 |
Materialism and Identity The Advantages of Empiricism are the Disadvantages of Empiricism Why Conan Doyle Killed Off Holmes to Write about Victorian Faeries |
| 5 |
Self and Self-Revelation Oedipal Resistances Retrospective Narratives |
| 6 |
The Position of the Observer Small Town, Country House, Sexual Demimonde, Moving Train |
| 7 |
McGuffins, Clewes, Histories The Detective as Knight Errant Film Noir as Style and as Moral Orientation |
| 8 |
Deep Focus Politics and Representation Does Rosebud Even Matter? Kane’s Women |
| 9 |
Doubling and the Mind-Body Nexus Completing Dupin The Double-Mirror Paradigm of Self-Consciousness Evidence, Clues, Solution: Elusive Pleasures |
| 10 |
Guilt and Transference The Pleasure of Looking through Other People’s Windows The Secret in the Marsh: Coming Clean about Secrets |
| 11 |
The Hidden Jewels Doubling and Narcissism “The Mystery to a Solution” |
