French Detective Fiction (2016-2017)

02/11/17
French Detective Fiction | University of Kent
French Detective Fiction
(2016-2017)
View Online
Detective fiction is an extremely popular genre whose
basic template can give rise to a multitude of
approaches, settings, and values. This course is
designed to give you an overview of the tradition of
French detective fiction as it has evolved since
Baudelaire’s influential translations of tales by Poe in
the mid-19th century. Starting with Baudelaire, we will
then study three 20th century novels (Leroux,
Boileau-Narcejac, Daeninckx) and finish with a 21st
century tale by the bestselling Fred Vargas. We will also
look at Clouzot’s film adaptation of the Boileau-Narcejac
text, and the Podalydes brothers' adaptation of Leroux's
novel. Close attention will be paid throughout the
module to the generic conventions of crime fiction: how
do authors use these conventions? To what extent do
these conventions alter over time? We will also study
the extent to which detective novels mount a critique of
contemporary society.
69 items
Primary texts and films (7 items)
Histoires extraordinaires - Poe, Edgar Allan, Baudelaire, Charles, 1973
Book | Suggested for student purchase | It is important to buy this edition. 2004 is the
latest reprint.
Le
myste
̀
re de la chambre jaune (1907) - Leroux, Gaston, [2008?
Book | Suggested for student purchase
Celle qui
n'e
́
tait plus: (Les diaboliques) - Boileau-Narcejac, 1999
Book | Suggested for student purchase
Meurtres pour
me
́
moire: une
enque
̂
1/8
French Detective Fiction | University of Kent
02/11/17
te de l'inspecteur Cadin - Daeninckx, Didier, c1984
Book | Suggested for student purchase | NB the bande dessinée edition of this text, by
Daeninckx and Puchol, was reissued in October 2011. You may purchase the bande
dessinée edition if you wish, but please note that the Folio edition of the novel is the
primary text. There are several reprints so publication year may differ.
Coule la Seine - Fred Vargas
Book | This short text is available cheaply from French websites. Pdfs of relevant
extracts will be made available on Moodle.
Film (2 items)
Les diaboliques - Clouzot, H.-G., Boileau-Narcejac, Signoret, Simone, Clouzot, Vera, Vanel,
Charles, Meurisse, Paul, 1955
Audio-visual document | Core text | The film is available for streamed viewing through
the SECL webpages:
https://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/local/video.html
Le
Myste
̀
re de la chambre jaune [DVD] - Bruno
Podalyde
̀
s
Audio-visual document | Core text | Available on campus only through SECL website.
https://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/local/video.html?tab=french
Secondary reading: texts on detective fiction generally
(29 items)
Crime Fiction - John Scaggs, 2005
Book | Recommended | Critical study of crime fiction as a genre. NB: full text is
available in full at this webpage: http://detective.gumer.info/txt/scaggs.pdf (available and
downloadable at 8 August 2016 - this may change)
French Cultural Studies - Margaret Atack, 2001
Journal | Recommended
Le polar - Bonnemaison, Audrey,
Fondane
̀
che, Daniel, 2009
Book
Histoire du roman policier - Bourdier, Jean, c1996
Book
Le roman policier, ou, La
modernite
́
2/8
French Detective Fiction | University of Kent
02/11/17
- Dubois, Jacques, c2006
Book | Core text
Le
re
́
cit impossible : Forme et sens du roman policier - Eisenzweig: Uri, c1986
Book | Core text
From surrealism to less-exquisite cadavers:
Le
́
o Malet and the evolution of the French Roman Noir - Emanuel, Michelle, 2006
Book
Lire le roman policier - Evrard: Franck
Book
Le roman policier Fondane
̀
che, Daniel, c2000
Book
The Cunning Craft: Original Essays on Detective Fiction and Contemporary Literary Theory
- Walker, R.G., c1990
Book
Cultural Intersections: The American Hard-Boiled Detective Novel and Early French roman
noir - Claire Gorrara, 2003
Article | Recommended
Yale French Studies - Andrea Goulet, Susanna Lee, 2005
Journal | There are many useful articles in this journal issue
Les diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955) - Hayward, Susan, 2005
Book | Core text
Handbook of French popular culture - Pierre L. Horn, 1991
Book | Chapter: Detective/Mystery/Spy Fiction
Mythologie du roman policier - Lacassin, Francis, 1993
Book
The Cambridge companion to crime fiction - Priestman, Martin, 2003
Book | Core text
Murder from an academic angle: an introduction to the study of the detective narrative Heta
PyrhA
̃
¨onen, c1994
3/8
French Detective Fiction | University of Kent
02/11/17
Book
Le roman policier - Yves Reuter, 2009
Book
Typologie du roman policier
Chapter | Core text | Also partly available at this URL:
http://www.ae-lib.org.ua/texts/todorov__poetique_de_la_prose__fr.htm#01
Le
re
́
cit impossible : Forme et sens du roman policier - Eisenzweig: Uri, c1986
Book
The cunning craft: original essays on detective fiction and contemporary literary theory Walker, Ronald G., Frazer, June M., c1990
Book
The pursuit of crime: art and ideology in detective fiction - Porter, Dennis, 1981
Book | Cultural analysis plus attention to narratology. General study.
The Aesthetics of Murder: a study in romantic literature and contemporary culture - Black,
Joel, 1991
Book
Form and Ideology in crime fiction - Knight, Stephen Thomas, 1980
Book | Marxist analysis of detective fiction genre.
The reader and the detective story - Dove, George N., c1997
Book | Account of detective fiction genre in terms of reader-response theory and
reception theory.
Unwilling executioner: crime fiction and the state - Andrew Pepper, 2016
Book | Recommended
Crime fiction: A very short introduction - Richard Bradford, 2015
Book
Key concepts in crime fiction - Heather Worthington, 2011
Book
Detective fiction - Charles J. Rzepka, 2005
Book
Secondary reading: Baudelaire/Poe (6 items)
The French face of Edgar Poe - Quinn, P F., 1957
Book
The Cambridge companion to Edgar Allan Poe - 2002
4/8
French Detective Fiction | University of Kent
02/11/17
Book
| Core text
Alchemy and Amalgam - Salines Emily, 2004
Book | Recommended
‘Poe, Baudelaire and Mallarmé: A Problem of Literary Judgement’. - P. Mansell Jones, 1944
Article
New essays on Poe's major tales - Silverman, Kenneth, 1993
Book
Charles Baudelaire et la
poe
́
sie d'Edgar Allan Poe - Wetherill, Peter Michael, 1962
Book
Secondary reading: Gaston Leroux (4 items)
Gaston Leroux: de Rouletabille
a
̀
Che
́
ri-Bibi - Fau, Guillaume,
Bibliothe
̀
que nationale de France, c2008
Book
French crime fiction - Gorrara, Claire, 2009
Book | Core text
The Yellow Spot: Ocular 'Pathology and Empirical Method in Gaston Leroux’s Le Mystère
de la chambre jaune’. - Andrea Goulet, 2005
Article | Recommended
L'encre et le sang:
re
́
cits de crimes et
socie
́
te
́
a
̀
la Belle Epoque - Kalifa, Dominique, c1995
Book | Recommended
5/8
French Detective Fiction | University of Kent
02/11/17
Secondary reading: Boileau-Narcejac (5 items)
Une machine
a
̀
lire, le roman policier - Narcejac, Thomas, 1975
Book
Esthetique du roman policier - Narcejac, Thomas
Book
Le roman policier - Narcejac
Book
The roman noir in post-war French culture: dark fictions - Gorrara, Claire, 2003
Book | Core text
Wired to the Word: On Reading Thrillers - D. Platten, 2010-11-01
Article
Secondary reading: Clouzot (4 items)
Henri-Georges Clouzot - Lloyd, Christopher, 2007
Book | Core text
Crime scenes: detective narratives in European culture since 1945 - Mullen, A., O'Beirne,
Emer, C2000
Book | Recommended
Fast cars, clean bodies: decolonization and the reordering of French culture - Ross, Kristin,
c1995
Book
Narrative mutations: French cinema and its relations with literature from Vichy towards
the New Wave - C. Nettelbeck, 2007-06-01
Article
Secondary reading: Daeninckx: Sources on the Papon affair and 17
October 1961 (8 items)
Le dossier papon - Violet, Bernard, c1997
Book
Paris 1961: Algerians, state terror, and memory - House, Jim, MacMaster, Neil, 2006
Book
Maurice Papon: De la collaboration aux Assises - Cohen-Grillet: Philippe, c1997
Book
The Papon affair: memory and justice on trial - Golsan, Richard Joseph, 2000
6/8
French Detective Fiction | University of Kent
02/11/17
Book
Vichy's Afterlife : History and Counterhistory in Postwar France - Golsan, R., c2000
Book
Dossiers daccusation: Bousquet, Papon, Touvier - Lambert, Bernard, 1991
Book
The Papon affair: memory and justice on trial - Golsan, Richard Joseph, 2000
Book
'Direction les oubliettes de l'histoire': witnessing the past in the contemporary French
polar - C. Forsdick, 2001-01-01
Article
Secondary reading: Vargas (6 items)
La
se
́
duction
policie
̀
re: signes de croissance d'un genre
re
́
pute
́
mineur : Pierre Magnan, Daniel Pennac et quelques autres - Verdaguer, Pierre, 1999
Book
Mythes et démystification dans le roman policier de Fred Vargas’ - Laetitia Gonon, 2010
Article
Frauenkrimi/polar
fe
́
minin: generic expectations and the reception of recent French and German crime novels
by women - Barfoot, Nicola, c2007
Book
Rompols not of the Bailey: Fred Vargas and the Polar as mini-proto-myth - Sara Poole,
2001
Article
'La femelle de l'espece': women in contemporary French crime fiction - V. Desnain,
2001-01-01
Article
Representations of the French Language in the Detective Novel Sous les vents de Neptune
by Fred Vargas - K. Shields, 2010-08-01
7/8
French Detective Fiction | University of Kent
02/11/17
Article
8/8