ENG/WGS 337: Women Mystery Writers
Instructor: Jacqueline Zeff
W: 4-6:45 p.m.
Women have had a complicated relationship with detectives and detective fiction, depicted frequently as victims or femme fatales. But not in their own tales of murder and mayhem. While “horsing around,” women writers of crime fiction dominate the best-seller lists and expand this most popular form of fiction reading, transforming and destabilizing the traditional male detective and enriching our discussion of social issues such as female independence, gender and crime, racial justice, power and the amateur, and environmental activism. Three short papers, a midterm, final take-home exam, and an original five-minute mystery.
“It’s fun to horse around with danger.”—Sue Grafton