Course Resources Archive

This module will appeal to students with an interest in crime fiction, who want to explore the genre and understand its appeal.  As we read some of the detective genre’s classic texts and authors, and examine more recent crime texts up to and including the present day, the module engages with the genre of detective and crime fiction, and the developing field of crime fiction criticism.

This module investigates the development of Crime Fiction as a genre, from its beginnings in the nineteenth century, to the most contemporary postmodern and postcolonial engagements with the form. The module explores areas such as Golden Age crime fiction in Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie, noir and hard-boiled and the writing of Raymond Chandler, the rise of women and postcolonial crime writers, influences from Scandinavian crime fiction, and contemporary issues such as the mediatisation of crime, the aesthetics of violence, crime in film, etc.  By examining the texts through the prism of crime fiction criticism, the module will give students an understanding of these narrative forms and their influences.

A student passing this module should be able to

1.Demonstrate an advanced understanding of crime fiction and the development of the genre, and reflect an engaged and perceptive understanding of different crime fiction modes.

2.Show engagement and skill in close readings of a variety of crime fiction texts in relation to cultural specificity, race, sexuality, class and gender, and an understanding of a range of crime fiction criticism.

3.Competently identify and analyse a range of crime fictions and their subgenres, including film, evaluate these appropriately and critically, using concepts and theories through close reading, use appropriate critical vocabulary, and present sustained written and oral arguments cogently.

4.Plan and organise their own learning experience, and implement research, and use appropriate scholarly resources, including information technology.

The Library Catalogue contains full details of the current reading list for this module. Further details may also be found in the Module Guide.