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Call for papers: Crime Fiction (Deadline: 31 juillet 2012)

Call for papers

Crime Fiction

(Deadline: 31 juillet 2012)

Following our recent project The Foreign in International Crime Fiction: Transcultural Representations (forthcoming from Continuum, August 2012, see information available at www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=167802&SubjectId=997&Subject2Id=927), we invite interested scholars and specialists to contribute to a planned volume on crime series.  We envisage including studies of print, television, and film series and are keen to consider a wide range of authors, countries and time periods. The category ‘crime fiction’ is here understood in the broad sense i.e. detective, spy, mystery and thriller. Research which includes interview input from crime fiction authors is especially welcome.

According to Eco (1966) in his study of the Bond books, a series is constructed around a fixed grammar. Other critics such as Cawelti (1976) have insisted on the formulaic nature of crime fiction, including the series. To what extent is this accurate? What are the mechanisms that anchor a series? What constitutes a series? How do the central characters evolve over time? Can a series (eg. Sherlock Holmes or James Bond) be successfully continued by another author or authors? What moves or allows an author to create more than one series? Might a series be based on elements other than the main protagonist, for example a place? Are series able to create a “sense of a place” (Geherin 2008)? Are there different criteria for a series in different cultures, or across genders and age groups? Can series address the problems and anxieties of a specific class, gender or age group? To what extent do readers’ expectations play a role? How do print series translate into visual form or vice-versa? We welcome proposals addressing these and any other pertinent aspects.

Schedule: Proposals of approximately 500 words, a short bibliography and a 50-word author note should be sent by 31st July 2012. Selected proposers will be invited by 31st August 2012 to send their full article of no more than 5000 words including bibliography and notes by 30th November 2012. Final acceptance will be advised by 31st January 2013.

Please send all inquiries and initial proposals to: carolina.miranda@vuw.ac.nz.

Jean Anderson

Carolina Miranda

Barbara Pezzotti

Parution: David Platten, The Pleasures of Crime. Reading Modern French Crime Fiction.

The Pleasures of Crime.
Reading Modern French Crime Fiction.

Platten, David
Amsterdam/New York, NY, 2011, 269 pp.
Pb: 978-90-420-3429-7
€ 54 / US$ 73

For 150 years the French public and literati have enjoyed a love affair with crime fiction. This book investigates the nature of this relationship and how through periods of dramatic social and political change in France it has flourished. It challenges the conventional view of a popular genre feeding a niche market, depicting crime fiction instead as a field of creative endeavour, which has gradually matured into one of considerable literary fertility. By inviting us to share secrets and crack codes, creating suspense and (at times) not shirking from presenting horrific events in graphic language, the crime story brings into play the intellect and emotions of its readership. This book explores both this intrinsic literary value of the crime novel and its extrinsic witness to historical events and cultural trends, arguing that these apparently distinct aspects are in fact dynamic, interrelated parts of the same whole. This blend of cultural history with literary analysis allows for the discussion of themes such as politics, memory, the urban environment and youth cultures, mixed with case studies of major French crime writers, including Gaston Leroux, Georges Simenon, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Daniel Pennac and Fred Vargas.


Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
‘Black’ Markets: the Emergence of the Genre in France
Profusion and Profundity: Simenon and the Paradox of the Crime Novel
Framing the Noir: The Individual in Society
The Aesthetics of Commitment
The Scene of the Crime
Shades of Noir: Modern and Contemporary French Crime Fiction
‘Une Nouvelle Nouvelle Classe d’Âge’: Youth Culture and the Roman Noir
Mapping Minds and Figuring Plots: the Novels of Fred Vargas
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index


David Platten is Professor of Modern French Studies at the University of Leeds. He has published on a wide range of modern French writers, including Michel Tournier, Philippe Djian, Jorge Semprun and Jules Verne. A scholar and fan of French detective and crime fiction, he has recently produced studies of the literary thriller and of the links between the media and politics in the contemporary crime novel. He is now working on an analysis of reading pleasure and has begun a new project on cultural representations of sport and sporting figures in France.