AFTER OEDIPUS: CRIME IN FICTION AND FILM
Bényei Tamás
BTAN2106MA 04
Wed 8.00-9.40
Room
Requirements: the success of the seminars will greatly depend on your contributions;
it is essential, therefore, that participants read the assigned material (the quantity of
which will be kept at a reasonable level) and contribute to the discussion. Since there
is no end-term test, seminar participation will be an important factor in the grades.
Presentations are encouraged.
The reading assignment will be kept on a manageable level throughout. In turn, your
familiarity with the assigned texts will be tested at the start of each seminar.
FAILURE TO PREPARE FOR THE SEMINAR WILL COUNT AS ABSENCE:
thus, if you fail more than three such tests, your seminar is a failure (the grade is a
one), and there will be no opportunity to make up for these occasions. This system is
meant to encourage you NOT to come to the seminar if you haven’t read the text.
Thus, theoretically, you may miss three classes, or miss one class and fail to read the
material for two classes, or not miss any classes but fail to prepare for three seminars,
etc.
Home essay: Deadline 12.00, 21 May.
Length: 2,500-3,000 words. Only typewritten essays will be accepted. Essays must be
written in the form of a research paper: use of secondary material and scholarly
documentation, conforming to the MLA Style Sheet, are essential. Failure to meet any
of these requirements will result in the reduction of the grade. Plagiarism and
academic dishonesty will, without any further comment, result in a failure as
described in the Academic Handbook of the Institute.
Seminar schedule
1
2
19 Febr
26 Febr
3
5 March
4
12 March
5
19 March
Introduction to the course: crime, sin, guilt, detection
The Oedipal theme
Reading: Szophoklész: Oidipusz király (in Hungarian; try to
get hold of the Matúra edition)
Film: Pier Paolo Pasolini: Oedipus (date and time of screening
to be discussed)
Recommended: Geoffrey Hartman: “Literature High and Low:
The Case of the Mystery Story”*
Szophoklész: Oidipusz Kolonoszban
The origins of the detective story: Poe
Edgar Allan Poe: “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”
Classical and metaphysical detection: Poe and Borges
Edgar Allan Poe: “The Purloined Letter” (use the Penguin
editions of the selected tales)
Jorge Luis Borges: “Abenjacán of Bojarí, Killed in His Own
Labyrinth”*
Jorge Luis Borges: “Death and the Compass”*
CONSULTATION WEEK
6
26 March
7
2 April
8
9 April
9
16 April
10
23 April
10
30 April
11
7 May
12
14 May
13
21 May
The classical detective story: Conan Doyle
Narrative paradigms
Arthur Conan Doyle: “The Speckled Band” *
Conan Doyle/2
Narrative paradigms
“The Musgrave Ritual”; “The »Gloria Scott«”*
Franco Franco Moretti: “Clues” (from Signs Taken for
Wonders)*
Back to the metaphysical detective story: Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton: „The Dagger with Wings”; “The Doom of
the Darnaways”; “The Secret of Father Brown”*
Tzvetan Todorov: “The Typology of Detective Fiction”*
Crime in classical detective fiction: Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie: The Murder at the Vicarage
(and short excerpts from The Body in the Library)
Crime and gender in hard-boiled crime fiction and film
Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep
Film: John Huston: The Maltese Falcon (date and time of
screening to be discussed)
Recommended: Slavoj Žižek: “Two Ways to Avoid the Real of
Desire” (from his Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques
Lacan Through Popular Culture)*
Back to Oedipus
Philip K. Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Film. Ridley Scott: Blade Runner (with screening)
Film: Angel Heart (Alan Parker)
William Hjortsberg: Falling Angel
Essays due (1st-year MA students only! - deadline: 21 May,
12.00)
Evaluation
NB. The assigned texts – barring, of course, the novels – are available in the course
packet (marked *)
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Kalligram folyóirat: krimi szám (2009 július-augusztus)