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Spring 2000 | |
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English 182 |
Rice 101 |
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King 325 |
Office hours: MW, 9:00-11:00 |
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E-mail: Gillian.Johns@oberlin.edu |
Description of Course
As a colloquium, this course is designed to offer first-year students the opportunity to hone their analytical thinking, discussion, and writing skills. Thus, while the content of the course highlights one literary sub-genre, the detective story, the intent is not so much to import a comprehensive and authoritative body of knowledge on the form--or, say, to read all the best stories and/or become experts on any one writer. Rather, in an effort to open up interesting ways of thinking and writing about this sub-genre, we will concentrate on developing critical language and interpretive tools for identifying what the white and black authors we read emphasize within their chosen form (for example, in such matters as use of language, setting, the figures of the detective and criminal, appeals to the reader, entertainment value/social critique, worldview, and implicit relationships to legitimate social and legal institutions).
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 thought by many scholarly readers to be only "subliterature." We will find, however, that many intellectual readers have welcomed such reading as "puzzles" allowing them to test their own reasoning skills, and thus we will strive to understand why this particular form is so popular among them and the ways it seems to serve them. It should become clear through exposure to the selections over the course of the semester that, while formulaic thematic conventions and reader expectations do indeed restrict the form in important ways, it is perhaps the very clarity and codification of these rules that make detective fiction especially attractive to American literary experimenters and transformers.
Required Texts
Expectations/Requirements
Class Framework/Participation-- This course will not be driven by lecture, though background information will be presented about once per week, when beginning a new writer. Students are expected to attend each class having completed the assigned reading for the day and prepared to contribute to class discussion and small-group workshops. A good rule to follow is to arrive at class with a question you want to pose for discussion.
In the beginning of the semester you will be asked to write four or five short "response" papers to the readings, which you may be asked to share with the class and turn in to the instructor for feedback. Class participation will factor significantly into your overall course grade.
Fridays will generally be reserved for small-group workshops on papers in progress and discussion of general writing matters. As stated above, the course is structured to permit a good deal of attention to writing concerns and skills, so students are expected to make a habit of using this time responsibly and thoughtfully.
NOTE: Attendance is imperative in a course turning on dialogue. You should not miss more than three or four classes except for medical reasons. A significant number of absences (over five) and/or regular lateness will lower your course grade.
Writing Component-- You will write a good deal in this course: three approximately 1000-word formal essays (about 4 pages, typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins), one of which you may select to revise over the course of the semester (to be discussed in class); and one slightly longer essay (approximately 1500 words). We will spend time in workshops discussing the form of the academic essay (including ways to use textual and secondary evidence to support claims), and students should be willing to learn from peer responses to their work. The instructor will distribute writing topics in advance of each essay assignment, though students are welcome to develop their own interests, provided that they remain within the framework and spirit of the course material.
If you are not already in the habit of this, you should keep 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 your reading is fresh in your mind. These notes will serve you as a resource for both brainstorming ideas to develop in your formal papers as well as discussing the works at hand closely in class. You need not strive for inordinate length in your note taking; thoughtful and regular internal dialogue is what makes annotation useful.
NOTE: the grade for any late papers will drop one-third of a letter (e.g., from B- to C+) each day the class meets (e.g., MWF) 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
Week 1
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Mon., 2/7 |
Course Introduction |
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Wed., 2/9 |
Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert, "Introduction"; S.
S. Van Dine, |
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Fri., 2/11 |
Edgar Allan Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" |
Week 2
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Mon., 2/14 |
Howard Haycraft, "Time: 1841-- Place: America" |
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Wed., 2/16 |
Edgar Allan Poe, "The Purloined Letter" |
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Fri., 2/18 |
Workshop: Analyzing and Writing about Literature |
Week 3
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Mon., 2/21 |
Arthur Conan Doyle, "Silver Blaze"; Bret Harte, "The Stolen Cigar Case" |
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Wed., 2/23 |
G. K. Chesterton, "A Defence of Detective Stories"; W. H. Auden, "The Guilty Vicarage" |
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Fri., 2/25 |
Workshop: Draft Paper No. 1 |
Week 4
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Mon., 2/28 |
Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest (chapters 1-8) |
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Wed., 3/1 |
Red Harvest (chapters 9-18) |
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Fri., 3/3 |
PAPER NO. 1 DUE |
Week 5
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Mon., 3/6 |
Red Harvest (chapters 19-end) |
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Wed., 3/8 |
Raymond Chandler, "The Simple Art of Murder," "Twelve Notes on the Mystery Story," "Notes . . . on English and American Style" |
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Fri., 3/10 |
Workshop: Managing Primary and Secondary Sources |
Week 6
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Mon., 3/13 |
Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (chapters 1-10) |
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Wed., 3/15 |
George Grella, "The Hardboiled Detective Novel"; The Big Sleep (chapters 11-17) |
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Fri., 3/17 |
Rick Lott, "A Matter of Style: Chandler's Hardboiled
Disguise"; The Big Sleep (chapters 18-24) |
Week 7
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Mon., 3/20 |
The Big Sleep (chapters 25-end) |
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Wed., 3/22 |
Workshop: Draft Paper No. 2 |
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Fri., 3/24 |
PAPER NO. 2 DUE |
Mon., 3/27- Fri., 3/31 SPRING BREAK
Week 8
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Mon., 4/3 |
Frankie Y. Bailey, "Black Metropolis"; Rudolph Fisher, The Conjure-Man Dies (chapters 1-8) |
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Wed., 4/5 |
The Conjure-Man Dies (chapters 9-16) |
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Fri., 4/7 |
HIATUS (no class) |
Week 9
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Mon., 4/10 |
The Conjure-Man Dies (chapters 17-end) |
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Wed., 4/12 |
Frankie Y. Bailey, "Black Rage"; Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem (chapters 1-9) |
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Fri., 4/14 |
Workshop: Identifying Allusion, Interextuality, Revisionism |
Week 10
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Mon., 4/17 |
H. Bruce Franklin, "Chester Himes," A Rage in Harlem (chapters 10-16) |
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Wed., 4/19 |
A Rage in Harlem (chapters 17-end) |
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Fri., 4/21 |
Workshop: Draft Paper No. 3 |
Week 11
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Mon., 4/24 |
Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress (chapters 1-10) |
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Wed., 4/26 |
Devil in a Blue Dress (chapters 11-20) |
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Fri., 4/28 |
PAPER NO. 3 DUE |
Week 12
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Mon., 5/1 |
Devil in a Blue Dress (chapters 21-end) |
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Wed., 5/3 |
Barbara Neely, Blanche Among the Talented Tenth (chapters 1-3) |
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Fri., 5/5 |
Workshop: Draft Paper No. 4 |
Week 13
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Mon., 5/8 |
Patricia A. Turner, "From Talma Gordon to Theresa Galloway: Images of African American Women in Mysteries"; Kathleen Gregory Klein, "An Unsuitable Job for a Feminist?" Blanche Among the Talented Tenth (chapters 4-8) |
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Wed., 5/10 |
Blanche Among the Talented Tenth (chapters 9-end) |
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Fri., 5/12 |
Student Evaluations |
Tues., 5/16 -- PAPER NO. 4 DUE 5/15, 12:00 p.m., Rice 101