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ENGL 1147: The Mystery in the Story
A multi-section First-Year Writing Seminar.
What makes a story, and what makes it a mystery story? In this course, we'll study and write about the nature of narratives, taking the classic mystery tale written by such writers as Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Dashiell Hammett as typical of intricately plotted stories of suspense and disclosure that have been written and filmed in many genres: Greek tragedy, horror tales by Poe and Shirley Jackson, psychological thrillers by Ruth Rendell and Patricia Highsmith, neo-noir films such as The Usual Suspects and Memento, and postmodern mystery parodies such as those of Paul Auster and Jorge Luis Borges. We'll look at the way they hang together, the desire and fear that drive them, and the secrets they tell -- or try to keep hidden.
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