American Crime Fiction: Form, Genre, History 4219-SC0009
This course provides an intensive immersion in the genre of crime fiction, arguably the genre most commonly associated with the American idiom. Derided by critics for its adherence to formula yet praised by authors and readers for the complexity of its narratives, crime fiction is a paradoxical and incredibly significant literary form that, since its debut in the mid-nineteenth century, has attracted large, diverse audiences of devoted readers. Indeed, the popularity of crime fiction has largely overshadowed the formal problems it displays. Crime fiction is characterized by detailed plots that either hustle through scenes of casual violence or linger to create an enveloping mood of menace and hostility, characters meant to allegorize broader themes or to represent the intricacies of individual motivation, and resolutions that reassert the rule of law or trouble the ethics of America’s criminal justice system. In short, it is a genre of intense formal contradictions, and this course will put pressure on those contradictions in order to understand how and why they have made the genre so enduring yet so notoriously difficult to define. We’ll ask what, precisely, makes a literary work or film an example of the crime genre, and how that definition combines aesthetic considerations with questions of cultural capital and prestige. We’ll also analyze how the formal dimensions of crime fiction have changed over time, and why they might be more fluid and open to reinterpretation than many critics have admitted. Finally, we’ll discuss the national context in which our readings and viewings emerged, to understand what makes these works uniquely American and how they participate in a broader American culture. Our goal will be to gain a more sophisticated understanding of crime fiction, and in the process, American popular culture.
Methodology: Guided class conversation, student conferences, presentations
Work: Midterm Examination, Group Presentation, Final Paper, In-class activities
Type of course
Learning outcomes
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
1.) Identify and explain the fundamental conventions of the crime genre in a wide variety of fiction and films.
2.) Analyze the formal and historical elements of a text with attentiveness to language and context.
3.) Effectively communicate their ideas about the conventions of the crime genre to a variety of audiences.
4.) Formulate, develop, and carry out their own research projects in the fields of American crime fiction and film.
Assessment criteria
Midterm Examination: 25%
Group Presentation: 25%
Final Paper: 30%
Participation: 20%
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: