English 383

Introduction: Overview of Course



I. We will situate detective fiction in three contexts:


  • social/cultural place of detective fiction - we will examine the society from which it emerges and which it reflects, comments upon, critiques, and, possibly, alters

  • genre fiction - we will consider detective fiction as a distinct genre and discuss how it fits into the broader category of literature

  • gender - we will explore women's contributions to the genre of detective fiction

II. We will trace the tradition of detective fiction in the 20th century focusing on three specific strands:


  • Classic Detective Fiction - we will examine the templates developed in the "Golden Age" of detective fiction (1920-40) and then trace the various ways in which later writers played with these conventions

  • Hardboiled Detective Fiction (the Private Investigator or PI) - we will look at the American response to Classic Detective Fiction, the conventions established in the pulp magazine Black Mask in the starting in the 1920s and further refined in the 1930s, 40s and 50s by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, in particular, and feminist rewritings of this strand

  • Police Procedural Detective Fiction - we will focus on one of the most popular forms of fiction in the 1980s and 1990s, detective novels in which the protagonist is either a police officer or some other public official connected to the police/legal establishment.



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