230347 Detective Fiction Revisited (S) (WiSe 2016/2017)

The aim of this seminar is not to recount the historical emergence and development of detective fiction (= a sub-category of crime fiction, focusing on the figure of the detective and the processes of detection), but to analyse and interpret recent developments in this popular genre and to ask whether writers have managed to innovate and refresh these familiar characters and narratives, and whether academics have managed to approach it from new and innovative perspectives.
Topics include:
- the effects of globalism and transnationalism on detective fiction
- race and ethnicity
- gender and the LGBT detective
- metafiction and intertextuality
- crossing over into other genres, e.g. urban fantasy
- extra-textual communication between writers and readers/viewers (cf. "How did Sherlock survive the fall?")
- detective fiction and evolution/Darwinism: searching for "the missing link"
- recent tv hits like Sherlock or Broadchurch or The Suspicions of Mr Whicher

Literaturangaben

Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London/Peter Grant series (2011ff)
K. J. Charles's A Charm of Magpies series (2013ff)
Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (2008)
Slavoj Žižek on detective fiction in the age of globalisation