This module aims to introduce learners to the (large) genre of crime fiction and its generic conventions. It will also trace the development of the genre, considering early crime fiction and its continuing influence and the various sub-genres of crime fiction. Thematic issues to be considered include: crime fiction’s responses to issues of history, gender and identity. A particular emphasis will be on national identity 

Knowledge and Understanding:

• Articulate the generic conventions of crime fiction;
• Place crime fiction within a historical framework;
• Understand and discuss the traditions of crime fiction and its origins;
• Analyse crime fiction in terms of gender, history, nation and identity;
• Engage in written form with the issues (literary and cultural) raised by the texts studied.

Intellectual Skills:

• Appraise and assess social media sources;
• To reach conclusions about the issues raised in the course, and base these conclusions on sound reasoning.

Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills:

• Understanding of procedures and preferred practices for social media;
• Analytical skills;
• Research skills;
• Essay/assignment writing skills. 

This module is taught in 10, two-hour sessions, delivered on a weekly basis.

• Lectures: these introduce the basic information to the students, and will form the bulk of provision. Hence there will be basic seminar-style sessions with tutor leading with talk and PowerPoint presentations during the first part of the session as basis for group discussion and questions and answers in the second part. Students will be invited to read up on relevant topics for homework including specific passages.
•  Discussion and group work: where appropriate, students will work in small groups to apply what they have heard in the lectures to a given case study. Students are asked to reflect critically on set questions and to contribute their own ideas.

Academic Skills:

By the end of the period of learning, the typical student will have:

• found relevant resources in the library and online;
• assessed the reliability of different sources of information;
• demonstrated a critical approach to academic texts.

Transferable/employability Skills:

By the end of the period of learning, the typical student will have shown that he/she can:

• work effectively as part of a group;
• present views and arguments clearly;
• communicate clearly and accurately in written form;

argue a point with supporting evidence 

Week 1. Introduction: The Genre of Crime Fiction

Week 2. Early Crime Fiction

Week 3. Early Crime Fiction

Week 4. Golden Age Crime Fiction: Agatha Christie [British]

Week 5. Golden Age Crime Fiction: Agatha Christie

Week 6. 'Hard Boiled' Crime Fiction: Dashiell Hammett [American]

Week 7. 'Hard Boiled' Crime Fiction: Dashiell Hammett

Week 8. Contemporary Crime Fiction: Claire McNab [Australian]

Week 9. Contemporary Crime Fiction: Claire McNab

Week 10. Conclusion and Q+A 

Literary texts used in module

Edgar A. Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)

Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest (1929)
 

Claire McNab, The Wombat Strategy (2004)

Key Resource List

A Companion to Crime Fiction, ed. Charles J. Rzepka and Lee Horsley (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010)

Klein, Kathleen Gregory. The Woman Detective: Gender and Genre, 2^nd edn (Illinois: Illini Books, 1995)

Knight, Stephen, Form and Ideology in Crime Fiction (London: Macmillan, 1980)

Knight, Stephen. Crime Fiction, 1800-2000: Detection, Death, Diversity (Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)

Symons, Julian. Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel, 3^rd edn (London, Sydney and Auckland: Pan Books, 1994)

Watson, Kate, Women Writing Crime Fiction, 1860-1880 (Jefferson, North Carolina and London: McFarland, 2012)