The Art of Detective Fiction: What makes a good detective? In one of the earliest examples of a detective story, Edgar Allan Poe claims that detectives need to employ the “high powers of the reflective intellect.” What are these “powers”? How do they get used by the detective? And for nineteenth-century readers, how might the detective’s adventures make them feel better about all the scary crimes that are happening in their urban environment? We’ll attempt to answer these questions by reading stories by Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Agatha Christie. We will also consider the evolution of the detective story as we move into the twentieth century and witness the rise of the “hard-boiled” detective, a genre filled with tough-talking wise guys and alluring and dangerous ladies who appeared in those old black and white movies your grandparents watched. As we move into the later twentieth century, we will look at how artists begin to use the detective story to consider questions of race and gender in the United States. The course’s conclusion will include a screening and discussion of Rian Johnson’s 2005 film Brick, a film that takes place in an early twenty-first century suburban high school and draws upon the hard-boiled formula in its depiction of teenage romance and alienation.
- Teacher: Colby Nelson