Renée Pigeon, CSU San Bernardino
Commentary: English 463, American Crime Fiction
This syllabus is for a course in American Crime Fiction, roughly spanning the period from 19201950. It is an upper-division course for English majors, taught in a 10-week quarter format. I
teach five novels, use film excerpts, and screen one film (Double Indemnity) in its entirety.
Three of the novels are quite well-known (Hammett, Chandler and Cain) and two (Macdonald
and Hughes) less so. The course explores these works from a number of angles, including the
development of the figures of the so-called “hard-boiled’ detective and the femme fatale. In
that regard, Hughes’ novel (much less familiar than the Humphrey Bogart film loosely adapted
from it) is a very interesting text: its protagonist is a displaced and misogynistic WWII vet in Los
Angeles, a serial killer of women. Hughes’ handling of the character, his attitude towards and
relationships with women, and the LA setting, raise excellent questions for students coming
directly from a reading of the earlier works, as to a lesser extent do Ross Macdonald’s moves
towards humanizing the hard-boiled mode in his character of Lew Archer in The Drowning Pool.
We also explore issues of adaptation and appropriation, looking for example at the roots of
Double Indemnity in a famous 1920s murder case, as well as the multiple film adaptations of
the novels on the syllabus. Because I teach at a Southern California university, the locales of
many of the novels are often familiar to students, so we pay some attention to how the
concept of “California” is constructed in these works, as well as their often casual racism and
homophobia.
Because of the level of this course, students also read a number of scholarly articles on the
texts and related issues; below is a bibliography of the works assigned (I will shift required and
optional readings from term to term), followed by the course syllabus.
English 463: Required Secondary Readings
Abbott, Megan E. "'Nothing You Can't Fix': Screening Marlowe's Masculinity." Studies In The
Novel 35.3 (2003): 305-324.
Breu, Christopher. “Radical Noir: Negativity, Misogyny, and the Critique of Privatization in
Dorothy Hughes's In a Lonely Place.” Modern Fiction Studies 55.2 (2009): 199-215.
Dussere, Erik. “Out of the Past, Into the Supermarket: Consuming Film Noir.” Film Quarterly
60.1 (2006): 16-27.
Shulman, Robert. "Dashiell Hammett's Social Vision." Centennial Review 29.4 (Fall 1985): 400419. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg. Vol. 187.
Detroit: Gale, 2007. Literature Resource Center.
Starr, Kevin. Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 1940-1950 (Americans and the
California Dream). Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. 183-199. Print. Note to students: Please
pay particular attention to pages 193-199 about WWII vets' difficulties in readjusting to
civilian life--we'll be watching part of The Best Years of Our Lives, mentioned in this
reading, in class together. You can skim through the earlier part of this reading and you
don't need to print this one and bring it to class, but it sets the scene for our next novel,
In a Lonely Place. This excerpt is from one volume of Starr's definitive history of
California, a good source for some historical and contextual background for our readings
in this class.
Telotte, J. P. “The Displaced Voice of In a Lonely Place.” South Atlantic Review 54.1 (1989): 112.
Optional Secondary Readings
Athanasourelis, John Paul. "Film Adaptation and the Censors: 1940s Hollywood and Raymond
Chandler." Studies in the Novel 35.3 (2003): 325-338.
Bascara, Victor. "The Case of the Disappearing Filipino American Houseboy: Speculations on
Double Indemnity and United States Imperialism." Kritika Kultura 8 (2007): 54-89. Web.
Ewert, Jeanne C. "Deep and Dark Waters: Raymond Chandler Revisits the Fin-de-Siècle." Genre
27.3 (Fall 1994): 255-274.
Lott, Eric. "The Whiteness of Film Noir." American Literary History 9.3 (1997): 542-566.
Mooney, William. "Sex, Booze, and the Code: Four Versions of The Maltese Falcon." Literature
Film Quarterly, 39.1 (2011): 54-70.
Pelizzon, V. Penelope, and Nancy M. West. "Multiple Indemnity: Film Noir, James M. Cain, and
Adaptations of a Tabloid Case." Narrative 13.3 (2005): 211-237.
Ramey, Jessie. "The Bloody Blonde And The Marble Woman: Gender And Power In The Case Of
Ruth Snyder." Journal of Social History 37.3 (2004): 625-650. Academic Search Premier.
EBSCO. Web. 24 Apr. 2011.
Scaggs, John. "The Hard-Boiled Mode." In Crime Fiction. The New Critical Idiom. London and
New York: Routledge, 2005. 55-77.
[Syllabus follows below]
English 463 / Advanced Studies in a Literary Topic: Crime Fiction / Spring 2011
[Prof. Renée Pigeon, CSU San Bernardino, Department of English]
Course Description:
This course will explore American hard-boiled crime fiction of the 1930s and 1940s. We’ll read
novels by James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Dorothy B. Hughes, and Ross
Macdonald and scholarship about these novels and related ideas. We’ll consider formal and
cultural aspects of the novels; issues related to popular fiction and adaptation, especially film;
and pay particular attention to the California setting of the five novels. No prior reading of
crime or detective fiction required.
Required Texts
Cain, James M. Double Indemnity. 1936. NY: Vintage/Random House, 1992. Print.
ISBN 9780679723226
Chandler, Raymond. The Big Sleep 1939. NY: Vintage/Random House, 1992. Print.
ISBN 9780394758275
Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon. 1930. NY: Vintage/Random House, 1992. Print.
ISBN 0679722645
Hughes, Dorothy B., In A Lonely Place. 1947. NY: The Feminist Press, 2003. Print.
ISBN 9781558614550
Macdonald, Ross. The Drowning Pool. 1950. NY: Vintage/Random House, 1996. Print.
ISBN 9780679768067
Additional required readings will be available on Blackboard (http://blackboard.csusb.edu).
Course requirements (500 points possible):
1 summary/critique of a scholarly article or alternative paper, 75 points (15%)
1 midterm examination , 75 points (15%)
1 essay, 150 points (30%)
1 final examination, 100 points (20%)
Engaged participation in class and online; short responses to readings; quizzes, 100 points
(20%)
Conversion of points to letter grades: at the end of the quarter, your course grade will be based
upon the percentage of 500 points you have earned during the quarter. Letter grades will
correspond as follows to your percentage:
100-94 A
93-90 A89-87 B+
86-84 B
83-80 B79-77 C+
76-74 C
73-70 C69-67 D+
66-64 D
63-60 D59-0 F
Please be sure to review the university, department, and course policies following the course
calendar. All assignments are tentative and subject to change as needed during the quarter.
Services to Students with Disabilities: If you are in need of an accommodation for a disability in
order to participate in this class, please contact Services to Students with Disabilities at UH-183,
(909)537-5238.
Course Calendar of Readings: Assigned readings should be completed before class on the day
listed; Print and bring copies of articles to class unless told otherwise (BB = Blackboard)
Week 1
T 05 Introduction to class
Th 07 Cain, Double Indemnity, chs. 1-7
Week 2
T 12 Cain, Double Indemnity, ch. 8-14
Th 14 Cain, Double Indemnity (Film screening)
Read: Dussere, “Out of the Past…” (BB)
Week 3
T 19 Hammett, The Maltese Falcon, chs. 1-8
Th 21 Hammett, The Maltese Falcon, chs. 9-15
Week 4
T 26 Hammett, The Maltese Falcon, ch. 16-20
Read: Shulman, “Dashiell Hammett’s Social Vision” (BB)
Th 28 Chandler, The Big Sleep, Chs. 1-13
Week 5
T 03 Chandler, The Big Sleep, chs. 14-23
Th 05 Chandler, The Big Sleep, chs. 24-32
Read: Abbott, “’Nothing You Can’t Fix: Screening Marlowes’s Masculinity” (BB)
Week 6
T 10 Midterm exam, bring bluebooks
Th 12 Hughes, In a Lonely Place, chs. 1-3; film excerpt (The Best Years of Our Lives)
Read: Starr, “Homecoming” (BB)
Week 7
T 17 Hughes, In a Lonely Place, chs. 4-5
Summary/critique or alternative assignment due
Th 19 Hughes, In a Lonely Place, chs. 6-7; film excerpt
Read: Telotte, “The Displaced Voice of In a Lonely Place” (BB)
Week 8
T 24 Hughes, In a Lonely Place
Read: Hogeland, “Afterword” (p. 226-249) and Breu, “Radical Noir . . . “ (BB)
Th 26 Essay proposal discussion and peer review
Week 9
T 31 Macdonald, The Drowning Pool
Th 02 Macdonald, The Drowning Pool
Week 10
T 07 Macdonald, The Drowning Pool
Th 09 Review, catch up, etc.; Essays due
Finals Week
T 14 Final exam, bring bluebooks
[course policies follow here]