LANG 3028 Crime Fiction
Credit Points 10
Legacy Code 102315
Coordinator Matt Mcguire Opens in new window
Description This unit will introduce students to a variety of texts drawn from the history of crime fiction; including the classic detective story, the Golden Age mystery, US 'Hard Boiled' fiction, the police procedural, and the literary crime novel. Students will develop their knowledge of theories of genre, specifically its formation and evolution, and its implications for the process of making meaning. They will learn about the changing place of crime fiction within the English literary canon, exploring the genre's relationship to questions of artistic value, the distinction between high and low culture, and the differences between literary and popular fiction.
School Humanities & Comm Arts
Discipline Literature
Student Contribution Band HECS Band 1 10cp
Check your HECS Band contribution amount via the Fees page.
Level Undergraduate Level 3 subject
Restrictions Successful completion of 60 credit points.
Learning Outcomes
- analyse a variety of texts drawn from the history of crime fiction
- identify the formal and thematic elements within various sub-genres of crime fiction
- employ genre theory to interpret individual texts and to situate them within the broader history of crime fiction
- locate crime fiction within a series of arguments about the nature of high and low art, and within the critical approaches to the history of the genre.
Subject Content
- The Classic detective story
- The Golden Age Crime novel
- the US 'hard boiled' tradition
- The police procedural
- contemporary Crime fiction
- genre theory
- theories of High and low art
- Critical history of Crime fiction
Teaching Periods