Crime Fiction ((3 credit hours))

Catalog description

Examines crime fiction across literature and media to interpret its cultural, historical, and aesthetic significance. Traces the evolution of the genre and its major subgenres-including classic detective, hard-boiled, police procedural, and courtroom narratives-to evaluate their narrative conventions and social functions. Analyzes the interplay between crime fiction and developments in legal, criminal, and psychological thought. Investigates how representations of crime, justice, and morality reflect and challenge social structures shaped by geography, politics, religion, gender, race, ethnicity, and class. Synthesizes perspectives from the humanities and social sciences to understand how crime fiction influences, mirrors, and critiques the societies that produce it. Lecture: 3 credits (45 contact hours).