This class will focus on the representation of crime in literature. As some of the texts we’ll examine are fictionalized renditions of actual events, we’ll have ample opportunity to interrogate the meanings of “fact” and “fiction.” This means we will explore the social and political “facts” that imaginative “fictions” record, the “fictions” that enable the legal and scientific production of “facts,” and so on. Although examples of early detective fiction will number among our objects of study, we will trace depictions of crime and criminality across a number of fictional forms that exceed the generic boundaries of the whodonit, all the while honing our abilities to read the clues to meaning left upon the page.

While sometimes representations of crime in fiction serve as an occasion to meditate upon human psychology or the nature of good and evil, in this class we will read crime in literature -- and the relationship between crime and literature -- very differently. Not only will we explore the politics and the histories of culturally pervasive notions of crime, criminality, and the criminal, but we will also question how literature participates in producing these notions and calling them into question. Thus, our investigation will ultimately allow us to reflect less upon “the human condition” than upon our present political realities -- and the fictions that undergird them.

Please do consider if you’re up for a challenging class before enrolling. The reading load will heavy and difficult. Central texts will likely be: Conrad’s The Secret Agent (1907); Kafka’s The Trial (1925); Wright’s Native Son (1940); and Morrison’s Beloved (1987). Course texts are subject to change. Bookstore editions are recommended, but alternative editions are acceptable. Short fiction by Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe, among others, will be included in the course pack along with additional supplementary readings. This course is a “W” credit, which means that students will produce 10-15 pages of graded, out of class writing. Writing assignments will likely be: two 2 page response papers; two 2-3 page argument papers; and one 4-5 page research paper.

Book List:
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent 9781551117843 / 1551117843
Franz Kafka, The Trial 0199238294 / 978-0199238293
Richard Wright, Native Son 0060929804 / 978-0060929800
Toni Morrison, Beloved 0307264882 / 978-0307264886
Coursepack