Welcome to Literature as Entertainment! This is one of my favorite classes to teach and I hope it becomes one of your favorites as well! This class will be divided into two parts. The first part of the class will be an investigation into the mystery genre (pun intended!). We will begin with the very first mystery story that cemented the genre into its own and move forward in time to see how the genre has evolved to accommodate a more modern audience while remaining faithful to the traditions of mystery. The mystery portion will include short stories, full-length novels, TV shows, and film. The second part of the class will focus on contemporary novels and graphic novels that have been turned into films. We will focus on comparative analysis and the author-director/reader-viewer relationships. We will attempt to understand why a written story can still be called the same thing in a completely different medium (i.e. film) when the similarities are so few. A discussion of culture will be important to our understanding of these changes. Our knowledge base in the first half of the class will come up throughout the later portion, as there are elements of mystery present everywhere!
