Legal Fictions: Detective Narratives in Latin America (19th -20th centuries)

Catalog description

This course explores the connections between fiction and the law, specifically how legal norms are fictionalized in Latin American detective narratives from the 19th and 20th centuries. We will focus, on one hand, on the concepts of criminality and culpability and, on the other hand, on the role of knowledge in explaining and, sometimes resolving, an enigma. Both aspects lead us to view crime not just as an event, but as a space that raises questions about the intersections of law and literature - or more precisely, as a weaving of legal and literary fictions. In this context, we will examine how notions of crime and deviation are constructed in Latin American detective stories. We will also explore the narrator or detective's skills in analysis and tracking clues, and the role of sensorial epistemologies in investigating the crime scene. This framework will guide our study of various narrative formats, including chronicles, novels, feuilletons, and journalistic texts. This class is for both undergraduate and graduate students.