The Literary Art of Murder
Newcastle University, U.K.
4-6 April 2008

Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Professor Stephen Knight (Cardiff University), Professor Laura Marcus (University of Sussex), Professor Gill Plain (University of St Andrews)

With the publication of “The Simple Art of Murder” (1944), Raymond Chandler established rules for the aesthetic evaluation of detective fiction. Identifying the “mean streets” of the American hard-boiled genre as an indicator of realism, he deplored the idyllic country-house murder of the British whodunit. Chandler located the hard-boiled style as distinctively American, establishing an American basis for the literary merit of the genre. Taking Chandler’s essay as a theoretical and a chronological starting point, this conference will explore the literary evolution of the British and the American detective novel since World War Two. We welcome proposals that consider literary approaches to specific authors, contemporary theoretical models, social and historical contexts, intertextuality and other literary influences. We are particularly interested in work that explores both the historical development of and the critical evaluation of the genre.

Possible topics include:
• (re) evaluating Chandlerian realism
• the evolution of generic conventions
• detechnobabble: science and technology
• parodies and intertextual references to other detectives
• the detective as anti-hero
• serial detectives/ killers
• race and detection
• location and the importance of place
• filmic and televisual adaptations
• the historical detective novel
• gendering the detective
• theoretical trends and new aesthetic evaluations
• detective fiction in the 21st-century
• murder as a fine art
• the confines of genre

Abstracts between 300-500 words for papers of 20 minutes are invited by June 15, 2007. The abstract should also include a 50-word biographical note and AV requests. Please indicate if you wish the abstract to be considered for inclusion in the post-conference publications. We will send acceptances by July 1, 2007.

Conference Organisers: Malcah Effron and Maureen Sunderland
Contact Details: detfic08_at_ncl.ac.uk
Abstract Deadline: 15 June 2007