DETECTIVES IN THE CLASSROOM: ESSAYS ON TEACHING DETECTIVE FICTION (McFarland & Company)

Edited by Edward J. Rielly

Detectives in the Classroom: Essays on Teaching Detective Fiction is a collection of essays examining ways in which educators at American colleges and universities teach detective fiction. The essays explore options for teaching courses on detective fiction and for using detective fiction as a pedagogical tool across the curriculum, e.g., in history, sociology, classical languages, cultural studies, religion, and gender studies courses.

Essay Format/Style:

Essays are to be 3500-4000 words long, typed double-spaced. The essays are to be written in clear, concrete terms devoid of jargon. They should be descriptive rather than polemic, concrete rather than highly theoretical. Instructors are invited to include course syllabi, sample writing assignments, discussion questions, and other materials in an appendix, but the total length (including such materials) should not exceed 4000 words. Essayists may include links to their own Web sites if they wish to make hand-outs available to other instructors. Essays should be written with an audience in mind that includes faculty in a variety of disciplines and general readers interested in how detective fiction is taught in higher education.

Documentation is to follow guidelines of the Modern Language Association, with parenthetical documentation rather than footnotes or endnotes, and a list of works cited at the end. As much as possible, information from printed sources should be paraphrased rather than quoted in order to avoid the need for permissions. Contributors should quote no more than 40 words from an article or story, or 100 words from a book, in order to stay within fair use. Restrictions on quoting poetry and song lyrics are especially tight, so paraphrasing is especially important when referring to these genres.

Compensation: No monetary stipend, but contributors will receive a copy of the book.

Deadlines:

Anyone interested in contributing an essay should contact the editor immediately with a brief proposal (1-2 paragraphs) and a short description of relevant teaching and publishing background. Invited essays will be due as e-mail attachments no later than December 15, 2007. Further information will be sent later to those who are invited to submit essays.

Inquiries To:

Edward J. Rielly, Dept. of English, Saint Joseph's College, 278 Whites Bridge Road, Standish, ME 04084-5263, 207-893-7930; erielly@sjcme.edu