American Crime Fiction: Form, Genre, History

This course provides an immersion in the genre of crime fiction, arguably the genre most commonly associated with the American idiom. Derided by critics for its adherence to formula yet praised by authors and readers for the complexity of its narratives, crime fiction is a paradoxical and incredibly significant form that, since its debut in the mid-19th century, has attracted large, diverse audiences of devoted readers. We’ll ask what makes a literary work or film an example of the crime genre, and how that definition combines aesthetic considerations with questions of cultural capital and prestige. We’ll also analyze how the formal dimensions of crime fiction have changed over time, and why they might be more fluid and open to reinterpretation than many critics have admitted. Finally, we’ll discuss the national context in which our readings and viewings emerged, to understand what makes these works uniquely American and how they participate in a broader American culture.

This course provides an intensive immersion in the genre of crime fiction, arguably the genre most commonly associated with the American idiom. Derided by critics for its adherence to formula yet praised by authors and readers for the complexity of its narratives, crime fiction is a paradoxical and incredibly significant literary form that, since its debut in the mid-nineteenth century, has attracted large, diverse audiences of devoted readers. Indeed, the popularity of crime fiction has largely overshadowed the formal problems it displays. Crime fiction is characterized by detailed plots that either hustle through scenes of casual violence or linger to create an enveloping mood of menace and hostility, characters meant to allegorize broader themes or to represent the intricacies of individual motivation, and resolutions that reassert the rule of law or trouble the ethics of America’s criminal justice system. In short, it is a genre of intense formal contradictions, and this course will put pressure on those contradictions in order to understand how and why they have made the genre so enduring yet so notoriously difficult to define. We’ll ask what, precisely, makes a literary work or film an example of the crime genre, and how that definition combines aesthetic considerations with questions of cultural capital and prestige. We’ll also analyze how the formal dimensions of crime fiction have changed over time, and why they might be more fluid and open to reinterpretation than many critics have admitted. Finally, we’ll discuss the national context in which our readings and viewings emerged, to understand what makes these works uniquely American and how they participate in a broader American culture. Our goal will be to gain a more sophisticated understanding of crime fiction, and in the process, American popular culture.

Methodology: Guided class conversation, student conferences, presentations

Work: Midterm Examination, Group Presentation, Final Paper, In-class activities

Bibliography:

Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place

Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley

Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem

Walter Mosley, Six Easy Pieces

Other readings and viewings available via COME or the ASC library

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

1.) Identify and explain the fundamental conventions of the crime genre in a wide variety of fiction and films.

2.) Analyze the formal and historical elements of a text with attentiveness to language and context.

3.) Effectively communicate their ideas about the conventions of the crime genre to a variety of audiences.

4.) Formulate, develop, and carry out their own research projects in the fields of American crime fiction and film.

Midterm Examination: 25%

Group Presentation: 25%

Final Paper: 30%

Participation: 20%