AMERICAN DETECTIVE FICTION IN BLACK AND WHITE

Description of Course

It perhaps goes without saying that in literary study it is customary to pay close attention to "good" and original literature, but in this course we will examine formula stories and novels through various critical lenses--formal, thematic, and cultural. Many intellectual readers have celebrated reading detective stories, claiming that these "puzzles" allow them to test their reasoning skills and ethical positions. And while we read sample classical, hard-boiled, and contemporary stories and novels, we will consider why this particular form might be so popular to these readers and others, as well as how its various parts fit together. It should become clear through close reading of various samples over the course of the semester that, while formulaic conventions and reader expectations do indeed restrict the genre in important ways, it is also true that the very clarity and codification of these rules paradoxically make this genre especially attractive to many experimenters and transformers.

As a colloquium, this course is designed to offer first-year students the opportunity to develop both analytical thinking and writing skills in a relatively small class. Thus, while we will focus here on one popular genre and models of different interpretive approaches to it, the intent is not so much to impart a comprehensive and authoritative body of knowledge about the form but rather to open up interesting ways of reading, thinking, and writing about it. By the same token, we are not here to become experts on any one of the white or black writers we will read but to develop critical language and tools for identifying what these detective fiction authors suggest through their use of the formula (e.g., through their use of plot, language, description, development of the figures of the detective and criminal, as well as their moral inquiry, implicit worldview, and the terms of entertainment value or reader pleasure.

Required Texts

(available from the College bookstore except as noted)

Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem (1957)

Rudolph Fisher, The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem (1932)

Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (1939)

Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress (1990)

Course reader (available from the English Dept. office, Rice 130)

Expectations/Requirements

Class Framework--As a colloquium, this course will not be driven by lecture. Background information will be presented as informal lecture from time to time on the authors and texts we read, but you are expected to attend each class having completed the assigned reading for the day--both primary and secondary--and prepared to contribute thoughtfully to class discussion or workshops. Response papers are assigned with the aim of offering students a chance to prepare "talking points" for class discussion but not to take the place of regular active interpretation or note taking. Class participation will factor significantly into the overall course grade.

Periodically, class time will be devoted to specific writing matters and tasks (see the schedule below), but students are also encouraged to meet with the instructor individually to discuss their writing. While conferences are scheduled during the second part of the semester, you are welcome to drop by earlier in the semester during office hours and/or to schedule an appointment. The college also has a writing center (hours to be announced in class) available to all students.

Writing Component--You should expect to do a good deal of writing in this course.

The books you buy for this course are not as expensive as they might be, and you are expected to be in the habit of keeping regular reading notes (both in and outside of the books themselves) in which you record your partial and impartial impressions, queries, and/or observations while they are fresh in your mind. These notes need not be inordinately long, but they should serve you as a resource for both brainstorming ideas to develop in your formal papers as well as discussing the works closely in class. In the long run, they will assist you in observing echoes in the stories and novels we read so that you are better prepared to approach the final novel you read for the course, which you will describe to the class in pairs.

You will write four formal papers (typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins all around) and three short response papers in this course. Assignments for the formal essays will be given in advance in writing, though you are welcome to develop your own topics based on your interests provided they remain within the framework of the course material. Roughly, the formal essay assignments consist of one short essay (2 to 3 pp.), two mid-length essays (4 to 5 pp.), and one slightly longer final essay (6 to 7 pp.) examining a novel not read by the whole class but selected from a supplementary bibliography (to be discussed in class). Response papers should be 1 to 2 pages and may be hand-written.

NOTE: Response papers may not be turned in late. The grade for any late formal papers will drop one-third of a letter grade (e.g., from B- to C+) each day the class meets unless special arrangement has been made with the instructor in advance of the paper's due date. (Extensions will be granted only in the case of illness, family emergency, or other justifiable reason.)

Reading and Assignment Schedule

Sept. 6 Sept. 8	Course Introduction John G. Cawelti, "The Study of Literary Formulas"; Stephen Knight, Introduction to Form and Ideology in Crime Fiction; Dennis Porter, "Backward Construction and the Art of Suspense"
Sept. 11 Sept. 13 Sept. 15	Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem (chapters 1-9); Response Paper Due Himes, A Rage in Harlem (chapters 10-17); Gilbert H. Muller, "The Greatest Show on Earth" Himes, A Rage in Harlem (chapters 18-end); Dennis Porter, "Formula and Reassurance"
Sept. 18 Sept. 20 Sept. 22	Edgar Allan Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" Howard Haycraft, "Dictators, Democrats, and Detectives"; G. K, Chesterton, "A Defence of Detective Stories" Short Essay Due; Class Cancelled
Sept. 25 Sept. 27 Sept. 29	Poe, "The Purloined Letter"; Ernst Kaemmel, "Literature under the Table: The Detective Novel and its Social Mission" Arthur Conan Doyle, "Silver Blaze" S. S. Van Dine, "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories"; Roger Caillois, "The Detective Novel as Game"
Oct. 2 Oct. 4 Oct. 6	Doyle, "The Five Orange Pips"; Pauline E. Hopkins, "Talma Gordon"; Martin Priestman, "Detective Fiction and Scandal" Bret Harte, "The Stolen Cigar Case" Writing Instruction - Bring two copies of Draft of Essay #2
Oct. 9 Oct. 11 Oct. 13	Holiday Workshop - Draft of Essay #2 Essay #2 Due; Class Cancelled
Oct 14-22	Fall Break
Oct. 23 Oct. 25 Oct. 27	Stephen Soitos, "The Tropes of Black Detection" Rudolph Fisher, The Conjure-Man Dies (chapters 1-8); Response Paper Due Fisher, The Conjure-Man Dies (Chapter 9-16)
Oct. 30 Nov. 1 Nov. 3	Fisher, The Conjure-Man Dies (chapters 17-end) Adrienne Johnson, "The World Would Do Better to Ask Why Frimbo is Sherlock Holmes?: Investigating Liminality in Rudolph Fisher's The Conjure-Man Dies" Workshop - Samples of Student Essays
Nov. 6 Nov. 8 Nov. 10	Selection of Supplementary Novels; W. H. Auden, "The Guilty Vicarage"; Raymond Chandler, "The Simple Art of Murder" Chandler, The Big Sleep (chapters 1-10); Response Paper Due Chandler, The Big Sleep (chapters 11-17); Dennis Porter, "The Language of Detection"
Nov. 13 Nov. 15 Nov. 17	Chandler, The Big Sleep (chapters 18-24); George Grella, "The Hard-Boiled Detective Novel" Chandler, The Big Sleep (chapters 25-end); Geraldine Pederson-Krag, "Detective Stories and the Primal Scene" Workshop - Response Papers: "Talking Points" into Essays
Nov. 22 Nov. 20 Nov. 24	Conferences Conferences Holiday
Nov. 27 Nov. 29 Dec. 1	Essay #3 Due; David Lehman, "Mysteries and Myths"; possible additional essay TBA Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress (chapters 1-10) Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress (chapters 11-20)
Dec. 4 Dec. 6   Dec. 8	Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress (chapters 21-end); Theodore O. Mason, Jr., "Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins: The Detective and Afro-American Fiction" Patricia A. Turner, "From Talma Gordon to Theresa Galloway: Images of African American Woman in Mysteries"; Robin Winks, introduction to Detective Fiction: A Collection of Critical Essays; Jacqueline Bobo, introduction to Black Women as Cultural Readers Strategies for Interpreting Supplementary Novels
Dec. 11 Dec. 13 Dec. 15	Paired Presentations - Supplementary Novel Paired Presentations - Supplementary Novel Reading Period; Final Essay Due 5:00 p.m., Rice 101