What's the twist? : French and Francophone Detective Fiction

Catalog description

This course traces the "twists" of French detective fiction from the 19th through the 21st century. Students will learn to interrogate the assumptions and imperatives undergirding its generic conventions as well as how the form has been taken up and complicated by more contemporary works across literature, performance art, film, and television. We will discuss detective fiction's relationship to constructions of cultural identity, its participation in ongoing legacies of racism and colonialism, and the genre's queer and feminist reimaginings. Analyzing the traffic between the literary genre and the fields of criminology and early forensic science, this course engages critically with foundational literary texts such as Poe’s "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and Maurice Leblanc’s "Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar," while exploring more contemporary works such as Patrick Modiano’s "The Black Notebook," Sophie Calle’s "Suite Vénitienne," Virginie Despentes' "Apocalypse Baby," and the Netflix series "Lupin."