ENG 243, 244 - Genres of Popular Fiction

Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 244).
A study of the nineteenth century genesis and twentieth century development of three of the major genres of popular writing: mystery, horror, and science fiction. We will be reading not only particular works from these categories but theoretical essays on the nature of the genre itself. Authors may include Poe, Lovecraft, Conan Doyle, Hammett, Chandler, Shelley, Le Guin, and others. This course will not only focus on reading popular literature and writing standard literary critical papers but will also examine literary genre as a category and ask students to write creatively within the specific literary genres - mystery, horror, romance, adventure, science fiction - studied by the course. In this way, the course will provide a thorough exploration (i.e. historical, theoretical, and practical) of the various modes of popular literary expression. Satisfies departmental Prose requirement.