“Polar noir”: Reading African-American Detective Fiction

“Polar noir”: Reading African-American Detective Fiction PDF Author: Claude Julien (dir.). Alice Mills
Publisher: Presses universitaires François-Rabelais
ISBN: 2869065132
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Curiosity and the desire to grasp the specificity of an abundantly read African American genre born as the 20th century was beginning are the research intentions that inspire this volume. Indeed, only recently has African-American detective fiction drawn the attention of scholars in spite of its very diverse blossoming since the 1960s. Diverse, because it has moved out of its birth place, East coast cities, and because female novelists have contributed their own production. At the heart of this popular genre, as novelists BarbaraNeely, Paula Woods and Gar Haywood tell us, is black existence: black memory, black living places and the human environments that build the individual - hence a détour to the French Caribbean.

“Polar noir”: Reading African-American Detective Fiction

“Polar noir”: Reading African-American Detective Fiction PDF Author: Claude Julien (dir.). Alice Mills
Publisher: Presses universitaires François-Rabelais
ISBN: 2869065132
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book

Book Description
Curiosity and the desire to grasp the specificity of an abundantly read African American genre born as the 20th century was beginning are the research intentions that inspire this volume. Indeed, only recently has African-American detective fiction drawn the attention of scholars in spite of its very diverse blossoming since the 1960s. Diverse, because it has moved out of its birth place, East coast cities, and because female novelists have contributed their own production. At the heart of this popular genre, as novelists BarbaraNeely, Paula Woods and Gar Haywood tell us, is black existence: black memory, black living places and the human environments that build the individual - hence a détour to the French Caribbean.

"Polar Noir"

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9782869062146
Category : African American authors
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description


The Blues Detective

The Blues Detective PDF Author: Stephen F. Soitos
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
This illuminating book makes the case for a tradition of African American detective fiction -- novels written by black Americans about black detectives and incorporating distinctly African American tropes and themes. Beginning with Pauline Hopkins in 1901, black authors consciously altered and subverted the formulas of detective fiction in significant ways. Such writers as J. E. Bruce, Rudolph Fisher, Chester Himes, Ishmael Reed, and Clarence Major created a new genre that responded to the social and political concerns of the black community. Examining the work of these authors, Stephen Soitos frames his analysis in terms of four uniquely African American tropes: altered detective personas, double-consciousness detection, black vernaculars, and hoodoo. He argues that black writers created sleuths who were in fact "blues detectives," engaged not only in solving crimes, but also in exploring the mysteries of black life and culture. Soitos grounds his study in African American literary theory, particularly the work of Houston Baker, Bernard Bell, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. He offers both a new way of conceiving black detective fiction and a series of insightful readings of books in this genre. -- From product description.

The Crossroads of Crime Writing

The Crossroads of Crime Writing PDF Author: Meghan P. Nolan
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1839991186
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
This volume argues that we must examine the boundaries in fiction and non-fiction crime writing with an awareness of and turn toward the unseen structures and spatial uncertainties that so often lead to and reflect collective fears and anxieties. Drawing upon the insights and expertise of an international array of scholars, the chapters within explore the interplay of the literary, historical, social, and cultural in various modes of crime writing from the 1890s to as recent as 2017. They examine unseen structures and uncertain spaces, and simultaneously provide new insights into the works of iconic authors, such as Christie, and iconic fictional figures, like Holmes, as well as underexplored subjects, including Ukrainian detective fiction of the Soviet period and crime writing by a Bengali police detective at the turn of the twentieth century. The breadth of coverage—of both time and place—is an indicator of a text in which seasoned readers, advanced students, and academics will find new perspectives on crime writing employing theories of cultural memory and deep mapping.

Race, Gender and Empire in American Detective Fiction

Race, Gender and Empire in American Detective Fiction PDF Author: John Cullen Gruesser
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786465360
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
This book highlights detection's malleability by analyzing the works of particular groups of authors from specific time periods written in response to other texts. It traces the roles that gender, race and empire have played in American detective fiction from Edgar Allan Poe's works through the myriad variations upon them published before 1920 to hard-boiled fiction (the origins of which derive in part from turn-of-the-20th-century notions about gender, race and nationality), and it concludes with a discussion of contemporary mystery series with inner-city settings that address black male and female heroism.

Crime Fiction and National Identities in the Global Age

Crime Fiction and National Identities in the Global Age PDF Author: Julie H. Kim
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476677158
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
To read a crime novel today largely simulates the exercise of reading newspapers or watching the news. The speed and frequency with which today's bestselling works of crime fiction are produced allow them to mirror and dissect nearly contemporaneous socio-political events and conflicts. This collection examines this phenomenon and offers original, critical, essays on how national identity appears in international crime fiction in the age of populism and globalization. These essays address topics such as the array of competing nationalisms in Europe; Indian secularism versus Hindu communalism; the populist rhetoric tinged with misogyny or homophobia in the United States; racial, religious or ethnic others who are sidelined in political appeals to dominant native voices; and the increasing economic chasm between a rich and poor. More broadly, these essays inquire into themes such as how national identity and various conceptions of masculinity are woven together, how dominant native cultures interact with migrant and colonized cultures to explore insider/outsider paradigms and identity politics, and how generic and cultural boundaries are repeatedly crossed in postcolonial detective fiction.

The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction

The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction PDF Author: Janice Allan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429842422
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 859

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Book Description
The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction is a comprehensive introduction to crime fiction and crime fiction scholarship today. Across 45 original chapters, specialists in the field offer innovative approaches to the classics of the genre as well as ground-breaking mappings of emerging themes and trends. The volume is divided into three parts. Part I, Approaches, rearticulates the key theoretical questions posed by the crime genre. Part II, Devices, examines the textual characteristics of crime fiction. Part III, Interfaces investigates the complex ways in which crime fiction engages with the defining issues of its context – from policing and forensic science through war, migration and narcotics to digital media and the environment. Rigorously argued and engagingly written, the volume is indispensable both to students and scholars of crime fiction.

Towards a Theory of Whodunits

Towards a Theory of Whodunits PDF Author: Dana Percec
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 152757346X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Bringing together academics from Romania, the USA, Spain and Turkey, this volume follows the evolution of detective fiction, from its early forms during the late eighteenth century until its contemporary multi-media expressions. Tackling the best-known authors in the genre, as well as marginal, forgotten or eccentric names, and discussing prose which fits perfectly in the pattern of the genre or texts which have been conventionally associated with other genres, as well as films, the book explores the impact of whodunits in both highbrow and popular culture.

Contemporary European Crime Fiction

Contemporary European Crime Fiction PDF Author: Monica Dall'Asta
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031219791
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
This book represents the first extended consideration of contemporary crime fiction as a European phenomenon. Understanding crime fiction in its broadest sense, as a transmedia practice, and offering unique insights into this practice in specific European countries and as a genuinely transcontinental endeavour, this book argues that the distinctiveness of the form can be found in its related historical and political inquiries. It asks how the genre’s excavation of Europe’s history of violence and protest in the twentieth century is informed by contemporary political questions. It also considers how the genre’s progressive reimagining of new identities forged at the crossroads of ethnicity, gender, and sexuality is offset by its bleaker assessment of the corrosive effects of entrenched social inequalities, political corruption, and state violence. The result is a rich, vibrant collection that shows how crime fiction can help us better understand the complex relationship between Europe’s past, present, and future. Seven chapters are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Black Noir

Black Noir PDF Author: Otto Penzler
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781605980577
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The best mystery and crime fiction ever produced by African-American writers. Contributors to the collection include Robert Greer, Chester Himes, Walter Mosley, Cary Phillips, Frankie Bailey, and Richard Wright.