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EAS3080 British Detective Fiction
Module Description (Semester 1 - 2001/2002)

Syllabus Plan     Basic Reading List     Supplementary Reading     Essay Questions

MODULE CODE

EAS3080

MODULE LEVEL

3

MODULE TITLE

  British Detective Fiction

LECTURER(S)

  Dr. Stacy Gillis

 

CREDIT VALUE

30

ECTS VALUE

15

PRE-REQUISITES

None

CO-REQUISITES

None

DURATION OF MODULE

12 weeks (semester one)

TOTAL STUDENT STUDY TIME

300 hours; including 1x2 hour seminar each week for 12 weeks

 

AIMS

  

1. To introduce students to the historical and critical development of British detective fiction
2. To introduce students to contemporary critical and theoretical arguments concerning popular fiction and genre studies.
3. To allow for a close reading of detective narratives as means of elaborating upon cultural and critical practices.

 

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES

  

Subject-specific skills
Familiarity with a range of approaches to detective narratives, gender and genre studies
Core academic skills
Ability to think critically about non-canonical forms of production, as evidenced in the following: research skills; presentation skills; essay writing; critical analysis; WWW skills
Personal and key skills
Motivation, discipline, organization, rigour, articulacy, peer-assessment, presentation skills, writing skills

 

LEARNING/TEACHING METHODS

  

Teaching is by a two-hour seminar, once a week. Seminars provide the opportunity for detailed discussion of particular texts and of the wider issues raised on the module. Students will be assigned to research groups early in the module, and are expected to participate in group meetings between classes. Each week every group will prepare a brief presentation on the topic. Tutor will chair and summarize the debates. Week 10 is a reflection week, in which the class will look back and summarize the work done in the course as well as thinking about the assessed presentations. Each research group will prepare a 30-40 minute presentation for week 11 or 12. The presentations will be peer-assessed according to criteria discussed and agreed upon by the class. The final presentation counts for 20% of the student’s grade. The presentation is intended to enhance group work and collaboration skills, to augment student’s confidence in applying critical analysis to their own work and that of others, as well as developing advanced presentation skills.
The course is supported by a WebCT site and students are required to access this portion of the course at least once per week. Students will be given full tutorial support in accessing and using the site effectively. A discussion forum and logbook on the site are to be used regularly. Students will be encouraged to incorporate WWW skills into their presentations (with the help of the tutor).

 

ASSIGNMENTS

  

The following are weekly assignments:
1. Participation in the discussion forum.
2. Preparation and presentations
3. 500 word log entry (reflective summary of seminar and supplementary reading).
The discussion forum and personal logs are available in the WebCT component of the course. Tutor will participate in the forum and will respond to log entries.

ASSESSMENT

  

1. Three strongest log entries (chosen by student with tutorial advice and feedback) submitted in week 12 (30%)
2. One 3000-word essay assignment (50%); submission TBA
3. Peer-assessed group presentation (criteria agreed by class and moderated by tutor) in week 11 or 12 (20%)

 

SYLLABUS PLAN

 

Week 1: Defining the Detective Narrative
Week 2: Sensation Fiction
Week 3: Holmes and the Short Story
Week 4: The Golden Age
Week 5: War and Detection I
Week 6: War and Detection II
Week 7: Gender and Genre: Femininity
Week 8: Gender and Genre: Masculinity
Week 9: Revising the Golden Age
Week 10: Reflection Week – Presentation Preparation
Week 11: Assessed Presentations
Week 12: Assessed Presentations

 

INDICATIVE BASIC READING LIST

  

Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (Penguin, 1998)
Arthur Conan Doyle, selections from The Complete Sherlock Holmes (Penguin, 1992)
Ed. Laura Marcus, Twelve Women Detective Stories (Oxford UP, 1997)
E.C. Bentley, Trent’s Last Case (Dover, 2000)
Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Harper Collins, 1999)
Dorothy Sayers, The Nine Tailors (New English Library, 1993)
Margery Allingham, The Tiger in the Smoke (Penguin, 1992)
P.D. James, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (Penguin, 1999)
Ruth Rendell, An Unkindness of Ravens (Arrow, 1991)
Lindsey Davis, Silver Pigs (Arrow, 2000)
Ian Rankin, Black and Blue (Orion, 1998)
Reginald Hill, Bones and Silence (Harper Collins, 1991)


All the module texts will be available in Temporary Reserve. Some film adaptations of detective fiction will be screened. .

 

Supplementary Reading

Barnard, Robert. A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie. London: Collins, 1980.
Binyon, T.J. 'Murder will Out': The Detective in Fiction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1981.
Boyle, Thomas. Black Swine in the Sewers of Hampstead: Beneath the Surface of Victorian Sensationalism. New
York: Viking Penguin, 1989.
Craig, Patricia. The Lady Investigates: Women Detectives and Spies in Fiction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986. Docherty, Brian, ed. American Crime Fiction: Studies in the Genre. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988.
Forter, Greg. Murdering Masculinities: Fantasies of Gender and Violence in the American Crime Novel. New York:
New York UP, 2000.
Frazer, June and Ronald Walker, eds. The Cunning Craft: Original Essays on Detective Fiction and
Contemporary Literary Theory. Macomb: Western Illinois UP, 1990.
Gillis, Stacy and Philippa Gates, eds. The Devil Himself: Villainy in Detective Fiction and Film. Westport:
Greenwood, 2001.
Harwick, Michael. The Complete Guide to Sherlock Holmes. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986.
Haycraft, Howard, ed. The Art of the Mystery Story: A Collection of Critical Essays. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1946.
---. Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story. 1951. New York: Biblio and Tannen, 1974.
Landrum, Larry, ed. Dimensions of Detective Fiction. Bowling Green: Popular Press, 1976.
Light, Alison. Forever England: Femininity, Literature and Culture between the Wars. London: Routledge,
1991.
Lonoff, Sue. Wilkie Collins and his Victorian Readers: A Study in the Rhetoric of Authorship.  New York: AMS,
1982.
Macdonald, Peter. British Literary Culture and Publishing Practice, 1880-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1997.
Mann, Jessica. Deadlier than the Male: An Investigation into Feminine Crime Writing. Newton Abbot: David &
Charles, 1981.
Martin, Richard. Ink in her Blood: The Life and Crime Fiction of Margery Allingham. Ann Arbor: UMI
Research Press, 1988.
McCracken, Scott. Pulp: Reading Popular Fiction. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1998.
Merivale, Patricia and Susan Sweeney, eds. Detecting Texts: The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to
Postmodernism. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania UP, 1999.
Morgan, Janet. Agatha Christie: A Biography. London: Fontana, 1985.
Munt, Sally. Murder by the Book? Feminism and the Crime Novel. London: Routledge, 1994.
Page, Norman, ed. Wilkie Collins: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge, 1974.
Plain, Gill. Women's Fiction of the Second World War: Gender, Power and Resistance. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP,
1996.
---. Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction: Gender, Sexuality and the Body. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2001.
Polito, Robert, ed. Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s. New York: Library of America, 1997.
Pykett, Lyn. The 'Improper' Feminine: The Woman's Sensation Novel and the New Woman Writing. London:
Routledge, 1992.
---. The Sensation Novel: From The Woman in White to The Moonstone. Plymouth: Northcote
House/British Council, 1994.
---, ed. Wilkie Collins. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998.
Rance, Nicholas. Wilkie Collins and other Sensation Novelists: Walking the Moral Hospital. Rutherford:
            Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1991.
Reynolds, Barbara. Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993.
Rowland, Susan. From Agatha Christie to Ruth Rendell: British Women Writers in Detective and Crime Fiction.
Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000.
Symons, Julian. Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel. 1972. London: Macmillan, 1992.
Taylor, Jenny Bourne. In the Secret Theatre of Home: Wilkie Collins, Sensation Narrative and Nineteenth-
Century Psychology. London: Routledge, 1988.
Thomas, Ronald. Detective Fiction and the Rise of Forensic Science. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.
Todorov, Tzetvan.The Poetics of Prose. 1971. Trans. Richard Howard. Oxford: Blackwell, 1977. 
Willet, Ralph. Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction. Keele: British Association for American Studies, 1992.

Winks, Robin, ed. Detective Fiction. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1980.

 

Assessed Essay Questions

EAS3080 British Detective Fiction

 

Length: 3000 words

Essays must be professionally presented and must follow MLA Handbook conventions.  Please see the guide to essay writing on the website.  Deadlines for the essay are set by the School and extensions cannot be granted by the tutor - requests must go to the Head of School.  Late work will be penalized according to the School of English's regulations.  Students are encouraged to make full use of library resources - including journal holdings.  Anyone requiring a lesson on how to search for journals should sign up for an office hour immediately.

Answer one of the following questions, using at least two of the texts studied during the module.  Outside texts can be used, subject to approval. Alternative essay questions should be discussed with the tutor immediately.

 

1.     Consider the relationship between gender and detection.
2.     Reflect on the changing nature of the cityscape and/or countryside.
3.     What is villainy?
4.     In what ways is detective fiction concerned with the body?
5.     What is the relationship between detection and narration?
6.    Provide and critique a structuralist reading of the detective narrative
7.     How does Holmes relate to Victorian discourses of masculinity?
8.   What is the impact of war on detective fiction?