ENG 255 K POLICING THE CRISIS: BRITISH AND AMERICAN CRIME LITERATURE AND FILM

The seedy criminal underworld has long been a popular subject of crime fiction in British and American literature and film. More than just simple stories about criminals and police detectives, though, these narratives often reflect cultural anxieties about outsiders, class and racial divisions, urban dangers, and the forces of globalization. This class is designed to introduce you to various crime genres in British and American literature and film. Additionally, we’ll examine the ways that authors and directors utilize crime to tell stories and analyze the effects of those stories on readers with particular attention to issues and forms of justice, transcultural contacts, and the human relation to conflicts of violence. In this class you will read a variety of British and American fiction, poetry, theory, film, and criticism that present and interrogate criminality, policing, and schemas of justice. We will develop approaches for reading that emphasize crime fiction’s engagement with law, identity, and justice. Ultimately, we will study the cultural work of crime fiction by answering: what does crime literature and film do? Assignments will include short response papers, reading quizzes, serving as a discussion leader, and a final exam. Texts and films might include titles like: Darktown, The BlacKkKlansman, The Seven-Five, Nightcrawler, Policing the Crisis, Collateral, Bluebird, Bluebird and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Counts toward Peace and Conflict Studies minor.