 Rita Raley |
Dept of English University of California, Santa Barbara raley@english.ucsb.edu |
| "Today, how can we not speak of the university?"
-- Jacques Derrida, "The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes of Its Pupils" | |
| English 3960:
Nineteenth-Century Detective and Crime Fiction Professor Rita Raley Winter Quarter 1999 [course taught in the Department of English, University of Minnesota] TTh 12:45-14:00; Lind 202 Office Hours: Tuesday 2-3; Thursday 2-3 Course Description: From urban underworlds to
middle-class drawing rooms, this senior seminar will examine the ways in
which nineteenth-century detective and crime narratives reveal their
secrets, whether they be corpses, codes, or clues. Our survey of the
‘origins’ of the detective and crime genres will briefly include cultural
material on murder and execution broadsides; the Newgate Calendars; the
emergence of the detective figure; the penny dreadfuls; and Strand
Magazine in the 1890s. Of particular interest will be the
intersections of memoirs and murders (where the author of a crime is also
the author of the text); the presentation of puzzles and their solutions;
narrative structures; the rhetoric and figures of disguise; violence and
affect; the insistence of the letter; addiction; traumatic cultures; and
the intense voyeuristic fascination with the urban underworld and public
spectacles of crime and punishment. The three conceptual lines of inquiry
for this course will be theoretical, literary-historical, and
generic.
Books
(Available at the Williamson Bookstore)
Requirements: 10% -- Précis
Course Policies: Attendance and participation in class discussions will be important, and more than two unexcused absences will affect your final grade. Some of the reading will be especially challenging, and I do not expect you to comprehend every text equally or to grasp all of the arguments right away, but I do expect you to invest time and energy into the reading. Please read the assigned material before class and come prepared with questions and issues you would like to address (at times I will give you more specific instructions for this). If you ever have a concern or question about the course, please feel free to come to my office hours. One of your responsibilities for the course will be a class presentation, which will involve outlining a discussion topic and a set of questions for the class (guidelines below). The final paper for the course will be your senior paper, which can be either loosely or tightly connected to the material we study this quarter, and you will need to discuss your topic with me in advance. Part of the planning for this paper will be done in consultation with me and part of it will be done through the shorter paper, which you might use as an abstract. The précis (critical summary) will be due the day we discuss the reading you choose from the following: Foucault, Nietzsche, Benjamin; Seltzer. Guidelines for Presentations Discussion topics and questions are due to me at least 24 hours before the day you are to present in class. Presentations should last 5-10 minutes and might ideally begin with a passage that you use as a springboard for your analysis of the text. Discussion questions will be a way of opening up your reading to the class as a whole. You are welcome and even strongly encouraged to come talk to me about your presentation beforehand. Reading Schedule January 5-7: Introduction on Violence and Affect Mary Elizabeth Braddon, "Levison’s Victim"; Wilkie Collins, "Who Killed Zebedee?"; Sir Gilbert Campbell, "The Mystery of Essex Stairs" (all in Victorian Tales); Karen Halttunen, "The Pornography of Violence" (R) January 12-14: The Scene of the Crime: Underworlds, Disguises, and the Proto-Detective Figure Baroness Orczy, "The Fenchurch Street Mystery" (VT); Selections from E.F. Vidocq, Memoirs of Vidocq, principal agent of the French police until 1827; introductory chapter from Eugène Sue, Mysteries of Paris; G.W.M. Reynolds, The Mysteries of the Court of London; Mark Seltzer, "The Scene of the Crime" (R) January 19-21: Crime and Punishment Michel Foucault, ed., I, Pierre Rivière; M. Foucault, "The Body of the Condemned" (R); Walter Benjamin, "The Storyteller" (R); Friedrich Nietzsche, from The Genealogy of Morals (R) January 26-28: The Laws of Genre Edgar Allan Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"; "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt," "The Purloined Letter," "The Oblong Box," "William Wilson," and "The Gold Bug"; Peter Thoms, from Detection and Its Designs (R) February 2-4: Narrative Puzzles & Ciphers Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood February 9-11; 16-18: The Sensation Novel Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone February 23-25: The sign of three: trauma, addiction, and the gaslight detective Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four March 2-4: Imperial Fantasies Guy Boothby, A Bid for Fortune, or Dr. Nikola’s Vendetta March 9-11: Sex Crimes, Serial Killers and the Emergence of a "Wound Culture" Mark Seltzer, "The Serial Killer as a Type of Person" (R); Anna Katherine Green, "The Second Bullet" (R); material on Jack the Ripper; selections from Judith Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London and "Traces of Crime"
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| Rita Raley |
Dept of English University of California, Santa Barbara raley@english.ucsb.edu |
| "Today, how can we not speak of the university?"
-- Jacques Derrida, "The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes of Its Pupils" | |