ENGL 245(F) Arts of Detection (Gateway) (W)
In this course, we'll consider detective fiction in the largest sense of that designation, works from Oedipus Rex to Hitchcock's Rear Window, from Freud's Case
Histories to Faulkner's small town Gothics, from potboilers to Othello. What
can these works tell us about interpretive method? (In literature, as in life, we're
all detectives, of course.) And what can these works tell us about the precise
grounds of readerly pleasure? (What propels us when we don't know? what propels us when we already know too much?)
Format: discussion/seminar. Requirements: lively participation, twenty pages of
writing in the form of short critical papers.
Prerequisites: a 100-level English course, except 150. Enrollment limit: 19 (expected: 19). Preference given to first-year students, sophomores, and English
majors who have yet to take a Gateway.