Richard Lowry Phone: x11285 Email: rslowr@wm.edu Main Office: American Studies Office, College Apartments English Office: Tucker 214 Office Hours: Thursday. 12:30-2:00 in Tucker

Required Texts Requirements Syllabus Part I: Foundations Part II: Inventing Criminals Part III: Crime, Order, & Difference

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Foucault, et. al, eds., I, Pierre Rivière
Edgar Allan Poe, The Portable Poe
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Sigmund Freud, Dora
Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson
Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
Patricia Cornwell, From Potter’s Field
Weegee, Naked City
Janet Malcolm, The Journalist and the Murderer
You will also need to purchase a required Course Packet of supplemental readings.  These are marked on the
syllabus with an “*.”  Other readings, available at the web site, are marked by “†.”

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We will have a midterm and a final.  In addition, you will be responsible for turning in two short (3-4 pages)
papers.  Your first paper will be due Friday, September 17, at 5 pm; the second will be due Monday, Nov. 8, at 5 pm.   Late
papers will be downgraded one grade (for example, from B+ to B) for every half day it is late.  Requests for extensions must be made at least 24 hours before the paper is due.

Finally, each you will participate in a final project, which will entail both a group presentation and an individual
paper.  Early on I will break you into small groups (4, maybe 5 students).  Each group will be assigned a general topic in crime
and culture.  Each member of the group will then choose one “cultural text” not on the syllabus that addresses that topic.  By
“cultural text” I mean any kind of expressive or popular culture you might be interested in: a novel, a film, a television show, a
series of magazine or newspaper articles (for instance Newsweek’s coverage of the event at Columbine high school), music,
non-fiction narratives, web site(s), video games.  Whatever you choose, you will need to tell me what it is before you begin
work on it.  Each member of the group will work on a different text.  At the end of the semester the group will give to the class
a 20 minute presentation on its topic, integrating the findings and ideas from everyone in the group. To finish the project, each
group will turn in a summary (5 pages or so) of the presentation; each student will also turn in a 5-7 page critical paper on the
specific cultural text he or she has worked with (the topic may or may not coincide with what the group presented).

Aug 26:Introduction

PART I: FOUNDATIONS