Focusing on mystery novels and short stories, this course is designed to deepen your understanding of British and American literature. We will begin with classic mystery writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, then move onto some of today’s most respected and popular practitioners of the genre, including local writer Gillian Flynn. Although this is a lecture course where you will learn a great deal of literary and cultural history, we will spend a good portion of our time talking with each other about these books and the issues they raise. We will also spend a lot of time talking about how to read literature and develop your skills in analyzing voice, tone, structure, style, and other components of written texts. Key to this course is the question of why mysteries are so popular: What pleasures do they give us? Why are so many mystery writers women? What do mysteries reveal about the enjoyments and challenges of reading itself? And what do they tell us about the tensions and anxieties of different historical moments, including our own?

Assignments include weekly discussion posts, a midterm and final.