1. To add to the pleasure of reading
2. To utilize and sharpen critical skills acquired in other literature courses
3. To gain an in-depth understanding of a popular literary genre through analytical and critical study
4. To better understand the interplay between detective fiction and its socio-economic background.

1. To add to the pleasure of reading
2. To utilize and sharpen critical skills acquired in other literature courses
3. To gain an in-depth understanding of a popular literary genre through analytical and critical study
4. To better understand the interplay between detective fiction and its socio-economic background.

This course explores the development of American hard-boiled detective fiction represented by three authors, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald, in whose hands, the conventions of the hard-boiled genre grew and expanded. This course explores the emergence and evolution of the hard-boiled detective or private eye in particular social and historical context. It examines how the form responds to social-economic changes involving questions of race, gender, class, and the environment, thus serving as a type of social criticism.

This course explores the development of American hard-boiled detective fiction represented by three authors, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald, in whose hands, the conventions of the hard-boiled genre grow and expanded. This course explores the emergence and evolution of the hard-boiled detective or private eye in particular social and historical context. It examines how the form responds to social-economic changes involving questions of race, gender, class, and the environment, thus serving as a type of social criticism.

Major Texts:
Chandler, Raymond. The Big Sleep
Doyle, A. Conan. The Sign of Four
Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon.
---. The Red Harvest.
Macdonald, Ross. The Blue Hammer.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Dupin Stories.

Major Texts:
Chandler, Raymond. The Big Sleep
Doyle, A. Conan. The Sign of Four
Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon.
---. The Red Harvest.
Macdonald, Ross. The Blue Hammer.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Dupin Stories.