Crime and Detection

Catalog description

The detective story and the crime drama are time-honored genres of literature and popular culture. In this course, you will question the popularity of the crime novel, and the genre conventions that engage readers. What does this genre say about the Zeitgeist of cultural products, their representation of a culture, and their co-construction of a global/local identity? The process of detection, of deciphering clues, is much like the process of reading and interpretation. In this course we will read a variety of detective and crime stories, some by famous authors (e.g., Droste-Hülshoff, Brecht, Benjamin, Freud), others by contemporary authors that address interesting aspects of German culture (e.g., Turkish-Germans, gay and lesbian subcultures, DDR and Wende). We will also look at episodes from popular West, East, and post-reunification German TV crime shows (e.g., Tatort).Your research will revolve around five theoretical thematic circles through whose lens we view, analyze, and address the various texts. Be it social or sociocritical, geographical, historical, or narratological, the fascination of the crime novel will captivate you as well. Furthermore, we will deal with the historical interpretations of the genre concept of crime literature by reading critical literary criticism on the basis of Wolfgang Iser's reader theory.