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A Study in Scarlet: Reading & Writing Crime - CED00221C

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  • Department: Centre for Lifelong Learning
  • Module co-ordinator: Miss Sarah Wride
  • Credit value: 10 credits
  • Credit level: C
  • Academic year of delivery: 2022-23

Module summary

Want to learn how to get away with (writing) murder? This module will introduce you to modern British crime fiction: What sub-genres have developed, and why, since 1827? In what cultural and historical contexts were influential texts written and first read? You will develop the skills to engage with cutting-edge critical debates and to write more informed and considered storylines, investigators, and criminals.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Summer Term 2022-23

Module aims

This module will enable students to critically analyse and creatively respond to a range of British crime writings - of various genres and forms, by diverse writers from the nineteenth century to the present. Students will closely read each text in relation to its cultural and historical contexts and relevant critical debates (in the light, for example, of gender and postcolonial theory). They will explore crime writing’s generic and formal characteristics, the ways in which these have changed over time, and how to build on this history.

Module learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of the module, students will be able to:

  • Engagement with genres of British crime writing from the nineteenth century to the present, their defining characteristics and main contexts, and relevant critical debates.
  • Write critically about or to produce some crime writing.
  • Apply university-level critical thinking, research, and communication skills.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between critical and creative writing.

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Critical essay or creative piece		 N/A 100

Special assessment rules

None

Reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Critical essay or creative piece		 N/A 100

Module feedback

The tutor will give regular individual verbal and written feedback throughout the module on work submitted.

The assessment feedback is as per the university’s guidelines with regard to timings.

Indicative reading

  • Gladys Mitchell When Last I Died (London: Vintage, 2009)
  • Val McDermid The Mermaids Singing (London: HarperCollins, 1995)
  • John Scaggs Crime Fiction (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005)
  • P D James Talking About Detective Fiction (London: Faber, 2010)

In addition:

Specific literary texts selected for study (prose, poetry, drama and film)

Critical works appertaining to texts studied

Other resources

Relevant websites

DVDs of performances


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University is constantly exploring ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. Where appropriate, the University will notify and consult with affected students in advance about any changes that are required in line with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.