ENGL3601 - 01 - Crime Stories and American Culture

This course will examine crime narrative traditions and their function in American culture. The course begins with the birth of the classic detective story and traces the form through various transformations in 20th-century America, including the emergence of hardboiled "private eye," noir films, police procedurals and the "true crime" genre. Throughout the semester, we will analyze the social and political implications of each genre and each text, focusing especially on the representation of crime and society, as well as the portrayal of policing, forensic science, law, order, class, race, gender and justice.