Readings/Films:

Authors considered will include Ousmane Sembène, Driss Chraïbi, Patrick Chamoiseau, Didier Daeninckx, Yasmina Khadra, and Alain Mabanckou.  Readings and discussions in English.

Class Description:

In recent decades, many postcolonial authors writing in French have produced novels that engage with a variety of sub-genres within the field of crime fiction, including the “hardboiled” detective novel, the roman noir, and the serial killer novel.  What might account for this literary turn toward the dystopian, toward texts constructed around mysteries and often marked by shocking descriptions of extreme violence?  In what ways do the genres of crime fiction allow writers to engage with long and complex colonial and post-colonial histories, and to address issues of social, political, and economic injustice?  How do postcolonial writers push the generic boundaries of crime fiction, and to what ends?  In this class, we will discuss these questions through a consideration of a variety of novels and films with links to France, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Caribbean.  A comparative approach will allow us to understand postcolonial texts alongside and against earlier narratives of crime.

Additional Information:

All reading, writing and discussion are in English. This course satisfies “Outside Elective” course requirement in the French major.   This course satisfies requirements for the French Minor by exception, Fall 2019.

This course also satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Arts and Literature or International Studies.

Section times and locations in the Schedule of Classes