Introductory description

This module will introduce students to the emerging genre of crime and detective fiction in Britain as a way to understand the central importance of the practices and narratives of crime, law, order and policing to the formation of British national and imperial power and identities from 1850-1947.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Term 1
Wk.1. Introduction: Approaches to British crime, fiction, nationalism and empire 1850-1914
Wk.2. Charles Dickens, Bleak House I
Wk.3. Charles Dickens, Bleak House II
Wk.4. Mary Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret I
Wk.5. Mary Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret II
Wk.6. Reading Week
Wk.7. Lady Detectives
Wk.8. Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone I
Wk.9. Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone II
Wk.10. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four
Term 2:
Wk.1. Men of Detection: Sherlock short stories and other short detective fiction of period.
Wk.2. G.K. Chesterton, selections from The Innocence of Father Brown stories
Wk.3. The Interwar Years - Critical Movements
Wk.4. Agatha Christie, The Murder at the Vicarage
Wk.5. Dorothy Sayers, Strong Poison
Wk.6. Reading Week
Wk.7. Margery Allingham, Flowers for the Judge
Wk.8. Agatha Christie, Death on the Nile
Wk.9. Ngaio Marsh, Death and the Dancing Footman
Wk.10 Conclusion: Crime Fiction, Power and Resistance.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate coherent and detailed knowledge of selected texts and concepts relating to contemporary literary and cultural production;
• Deploy advanced analytical and critical skills through close reading/viewing of the set texts;
• Demonstrate a conceptual understanding that enables the development and sustaining of a critical argument;
• Describe and critically evaluate recent research and/or scholarship in subject;
• Demonstrate a critical consideration of the development of a genre in light of national and Imperialist narratives of crime.

Indicative reading list

Primary Texts: Charles Dickens, Bleak House; Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White and The Moonstone; Mary Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret; Arthur Conan Doyle, The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes; ; R.Austin Freeman, "The Mystery of 31 New Inn"; L.T.Meade and Clifford Halifax, "The Adventures of a Man of Science: The Sleeping Sickness"; G.K.Chesterton, The Pen-guin Complete Father Brown; Agatha Christie, The Murder at the Vicarage and The Mysterious affair at Styles; Murder in Mesopotemia and Death on the Nile; Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night; Ngaio Marsh, A Surfeit of Lampreys and Death and the Dancing Footman.
Secondary Texts: Auden, W.H. The Guilty Vicarage (1963); Bell, Ian and Daldry, Graham (eds)., Watching the Detectives (1990); Barnard, Robert., A Talent to Deceive (1980); Bird, Delys (ed.), Killing Women (1993); Botting, Fred, Gothic (2001); Browne, Ray and Kreiser, Lawrence The Detective as Historian (2000); Cawelti, John G., Adventure, Mystery, and Romance (1976); Ear-waker, Julian and Becker, Kathleen, Scene of the Crime (2002); Fiske, John, Understanding Popu-lar Culture (1992); Foucault, Michele, Discipline and Punish (1991) and Power/Knowledge (1980); Priestman, Martin (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction (2003), Detective Fiction and Literature (1990), Crime Fiction (1998); Klaus, Gustav and Knight, Stephen (eds), The Art of Murder (1998); Knight, Stephen, Form and Ideology in Crime Fiction (1988), Crime Fiction 1800-2000 (2004); Light, Alison, Forever England (1991); Malmgren, Carl, Anatomy of a Murder (2001); Mandel, Ernst, Delightful Murder (1984); Most, Glenn and Stowe, William (eds), The Po-etics of Murder (1983); Munt, Sally, Murder by the Book; Mukherjee, Pablo, Crime and Empire (2003); Orwell, George, The Decline of English Murder and Other Essays (1944); Plain, Gill, Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction (2001); Porter, Dennis, The Pursuit of Crime (1981); Reddy, Maureen, Sisters in Crime (1988); Roth, Marty, Foul and Fair Play (1995); Walker, Ronald and Frazer, June (eds), The Cunning Craft (1990), Summerscale, Kate, The Suspicion of Mr Whicher (2008); Caroline Reitz, Detecting the Nation (2004); Ronald Thomas, Detective Fiction and the Rise of Forensic Science (2004).

Research element

independent assessment - finding primary resources and developing own question topic.

Subject specific skills

This module will help the students understand the central importance of the practices and narratives of crime, law, order and policing to the formation of British national and imperial power and identities from 1850-1947. By focusing on popular narratives of crime and their contexts, the module will reflect on their situation within and relationship with British nationalism and imperialism. Students will be introduced to a wide range of primary, critical and historical/archival materials. They will have to analyze and assess theories and narratives of nation, empire, class, ethnicity to trace the traffic between literature, law and social power at specific historical moments in British and world history.

Transferable skills

-Demonstrate coherent and detailed knowledge of selected texts and concepts relating to contemporary literary and cultural production;
-Deploy advanced analytical and critical skills through close reading/viewing of the set texts
-Demonstrate a conceptual understanding that enables the development and sustaining of a critical argument
-Describe and critically evaluate recent research and/or scholarship in subject
-Display on appreciation of the uncertainty, ambiguity, and contradictions within contemporary cultural productions
-Make appropriate use of scholarly reviews and primary sources
-Exhibit an advanced command of written English together with a wide-ranging and accurate vocabulary
-Apply confident textual analysis and fluent critical argument to initiate and carry out an extended essay
-Conduct independent research through self-generated questions
-Explore methodologies for reading British narratives of crime, law and order within the context of nationalism, imperialism