Eng e-198 1Modern American Crime Narratives Lecture Course Fall 2010

Office Hours: Thursday 1:30-3:30

Or by appointment

stevens@fas.harvard.edu

“The Purloined Letter”

Reynolds, selections from Beneath the American Renaissance

Day, “The Gothic and the Creation of the Detective,” In the Circles of Fear and Desire
Week 2 (for Sept. 7, 9)
II. The Classical Detective Story: Imitation and Parody
Conan Doyle, “The Musgrave Ritual,” “Scandal in Bohemia,” “The Final Problem”

Mark Twain, “A Double-Barreled Detective Story”

Ellery Queen, “The Mad Tea Party”
Secondary reading:

Moretti, “Clues,” from Signs Taken for Wonders

S. S. Van Dine, “Twenty Rules for Writing Mystery Stories”

Wilson, “Why Do People Read Mystery Fiction?

Week 3 (for Sept. 14, 16)
III. The Hard-boiled Tradition and the American Private Eye
Hemingway, “The Killers”

Hammett, The Maltese Falcon

Mencken, “American Slang,” from The American Language

Week 4 (for Sept. 21, 23)
IV. The Hard-boiled Writer in Hollywood
Chandler, The Little Sister

____, “The Simple Art of Murder” [essay]

____, “Beer in the Sergeant Major’s Hat, or Dedicated to Ernest Hemingway”
Screening: Murder My Sweet (1944)
*Recommended reading:

Haut, “Under the Sign of Hollywood: Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler,” from Heartbreak and Vine

Mike Davis, “Sunshine or Noir?” City of Quartz.

Week 5 (for Sept. 28, 30)
V. From Outlaws to Gangsters: Crime as the Folklore of Capitalist Society
Hammett, Red Harvest
Screening: The Godfather (1972)
Secondary reading:

Slotkin, “Outlaws, Detectives, and Dime Novel Populism,” from Gunfighter Nation

McCoy, They Shoot Horses Don’t They?

Douglas, Ann. “The Dark Legend of Matricide,” from Terrible Honesty

Naremore, “Modernism and Blood Melodrama,” from More Than Night

Kermode, “Secrets and Narrative Sequence” from The Art of Telling

Wright, “How Bigger Was Born” [essay]

Etienne Borger, “Serie Noire,” The Big Book of Noir

Week 10 (for Nov. 2, 4)
IX. The Theological Crime Story
O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

Malamud, The Assistant

Mailer, “The White Negro” [essay]

Robert Lindner, “Introduction,” Rebel Without a Cause

Grobel, Conversations with Capote. pp. 109-127.

Screening: The Dark Knight

D. A. Miller, “The Novel and the Police” from The Novel and The Police

analyzing it within a formal and historical tradition.

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