Syllabus

Students are expected to have a paper or digital copy of the following novels:

Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister, The Serial Killer (2018)
Sara Paretsky, Indemnity Only (1991)
Keigo Higashino, The Devotion of Suspect X (2005)
Henning Mankell, Faceless Killers (1989)
James Ellroy, L.A. Confidential (1990)

The rest of the material for this class will be available through Duke resources.

SCHEDULE OF CLASSES

Beginnings

August 17 and 19. Synchronous lessons on Zoom.

This first week will be a general introduction to the course. Since most of the time will be devoted to introducing ourselves and discussing objectives and procedures for the online course, there will be only one short required reading:

Symons, Julian. “What they Are and Why We Read Them.” From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel. New York: Mysterious Press, 1992. pp. 1-18.

If you have spare time, or simply feel like it, we also recommend (but not require) a detective novel by Barbara Neely, Blanche on the Lam (1992). It is the first of a series set in Durham County, North Carolina, and featuring Blanche White, an African American housekeeper turned sleuth.

Students who cannot attend lessons on Zoom should contact the instructor.

August 24. Asynchronous lesson.

For this class students will be required to view a short recording (available under Sakai’s “Resources”) introducing the reading materials. Students will also be required to read the following short pieces:

Edgar Allan Poe, “The Murders in Rue Morgue” (1841)
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Mystery of Marie Roget” (1845)
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Purloined Letter” (1845)
Charles Dickens, “On Duty with Inspector Field” (1851)

August 26. Synchronous lessons on Zoom.

For this class we will meet on Zoom. Students who cannot attend the Wednesday lessons on Zoom should contact the instructor and view the recorded sessions on Zoom. We will discuss the readings assigned for the previous (Monday’s) class. Students will also divide into groups, and each group will report to the class on their reading. Reports can be very informal, and take no longer than 10-15 minutes. Readings are:

Readings for Group 1. Mandel, Ernest. “From Hero to Villain,” and “From Villain to Hero.” Delightful Murder: A Social History of the Crime Story. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. pp. 1-21.
Readings for Group 2. Emsley, Clive. “Policing before the Police” and “The Coming of the Police.” The English Police. Routledge, 2014. pp. 8-42.
Readings for Group 3. Gelfert, Axel. “Observation, inference, and imagination: elements of Edgar Allan Poe’s philosophy of science.” Science & Education, vol. 23, no. 3, 2014, pp. 589-607.

The Villain

August 31. Asynchronous lesson.

Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Final Problem” (1893)
Maurice Leblanc, “Arsène Lupin in Prison” (1907)
Gilbert K. Chesterton, “The Blue Cross” (1910)

The following movie will be available on Sakai’s Warpwire or through this link: Hayao Miyazaki, Lupin the Third: Castle of Cagliostro (1979). From a character by Maurice Leblanc.

September 2. Synchronous lessons on Zoom.

Readings for Group 1. Grella, George. “Murder and manners: the formal detective story.” Novel, 1970, pp. 30-48
Readings for Group 2 & 3. Ronald Knox, “The Ten Commandments of the Detective Fiction” (1929); W. H. Auden, “The Guilty Vicarage,” Harper Magazine (1948): 406-412

September 7 and 9

Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister, The Serial Killer (2018)

The Detective

September 14. Asynchronous lesson.

Jacques Futrelle, “The Problem of Cell 13” (1905)
E. C.Bentley, “The Sweet Shot” (1913)
Agatha Christie “The Tuesday Night Club” (1927)
Margery Allingham, “The Border-Line Case” (1928)
Dorothy Sayers, “The Image in the Mirror” (1933)

The following movie will be available on Sakai’s Warpwire or through this link: Kenneth Branagh, Murder on the Orient Express (2017). From a novel by Agatha Christie

September 16. Synchronous lessons on Zoom.

Readings for Group 1. Hühn, Peter. “The Detective as Reader: Narrativity and Reading Concepts in Detective Fiction.” Modern Fiction Studies 33, no. 3 (1987): 451–66.
Readings for Group 2. Dove, George. “The Rules of the Game.” Studies in Popular Culture 4 (1981): 67–72.
Readings for Group 3. Fram, John. “How Crime writers Justified Police Brutality.” New York Times (June 4, 2020).

September 21 and 23

The week is devoted to reading a contemporary novel. Students will also be required to view a short recording (available under Sakai’s “Resources”) introducing the novel, and meet on Wednesday for discussion on Zoom. Students who cannot attend the Wednesday lessons on Zoom should contact the instructor and view the recorded sessions on Zoom. The novel for this week is:

Sara Paretsky, Indemnity Only (1991)

The following movie will be available on Sakai’s Warpwire or through this link: Norman Jewison, In The Heat of the Night (1967). From a novel by John Ball

Procedures

September 28. Asynchronous lesson.

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four (1890)

The following movie will be available on Sakai’s Warpwire or through this link: Jean de Segonzac, Law & Order SVU Season 1 Episode 1 (1999)

September 30. Synchronous lessons on Zoom.

Readings for Group 1. Eco, Umberto. “Guessing: from Aristotle to Sherlock Holmes.” Versus. Quaderni di Studi Semiotici Milano, no. 30, 1981, pp. 3-19.
Readings for Group 2. Bloch, Ernst. “A philosophical View of the Detective Novel.” Discourse, vol. 2, 1980, pp. 32-52.
Readings for Group 3. Haycraft, Howard. “Dictators, Democrats, and Detective. and “The Future of the Detective Story” (1951). Murder for Pleasure. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2019. pp. 234-244.

October 5 and 7

Keigo Higashino, The Devotion of Suspect X (2005)

The Clue

October 12. Asynchronous lesson.

S.S. Van Dine’s “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” (1928)
Anthony Berkeley, “The Avenging Chance” (1925)
Ellery Queen, “The Mad Tea Party” (1929)

The following movie will be available on Sakai’s Warpwire or through this link: Akira Kurosawa, High and Low (1963)

October 14. Synchronous lessons on Zoom.

For this class we will meet on Zoom. We will discuss the readings assigned for the previous (Monday’s) class. Students will also divide into groups, and each group will report to the class on their reading. Reports can be very informal, and take no longer than 10-15 minutes. Readings are:

Readings for Group 1. Ginzburg, Carlo. “Clues: Roots of an Evidential Paradigm.” Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method, 1989, pp. 96-125;
Readings for Group 2. Moretti, Franco. “The Slaughterhouse of Literature.” Distant Reading. Verso Books, 2013. 63-89
Readings doe Group 3: Creeber, Glen. “Killing Us Softly: Investigating the Aesthetics, Philosophy and Influence of Nordic Noir Television.” The Journal of Popular Television 3, no. 1 (2015): 21–35.

October 19 and 21

Henning Mankell, Faceless Killers (1989)

Noir

October 26. Asynchronous lesson.

Raymond Chandler, “The Simple Art of Murder” (1944)
Dashiell Hammett, “Fly Paper” (1929)
Raymond Chandler, “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot” (1933)
Georges Simenon, “Maigret’s Christmas” (1951)

The following movie will be available on Sakai’s Warpwire or through this link: John Huston, The Maltese Falcon (1941). From a novel by Dashiell Hammett

October 28. Synchronous lessons on Zoom.

Readings for Group 1 & 2. Fredric Jameson, “Mapping Space,” Raymond Chandler: The Detections of Totality. Verso, 2016. 31-56.
Readings for Group 3: Broe, Dennis. “Class, Labor, and the Home-Front Detective: Hammett, Chandler, Woolrich, and the Dissident Lawman (and Woman) in 1940s Hollywood and Beyond.” Social Justice 32, no. 2 (100 (2005): 167–85.

November 2 and 4

James Ellroy, L.A. Confidential (1990)

Cheering for the killer

November 9. Asynchronous lesson.

The following movie will be available on Sakai’s Warpwire or through this link: David Cronenberg, The Dead Zone (1983). From a novel by Stephen King

How to Kill your Prof

November 11 and 16

The week will be devoted to discussing your final projects. See Requirements page for more information