Crime Fiction Symposium

Victorian London, post-WWI England, the mean streets of L.A.: in crime fiction, place matters. It is crucial to the evolution of the genre and the signifying possibilities of specific texts. Has this changed in recent years? Intensified? Diversified? Think Rebus's Edinburgh, Wallander's Ystad, Ellroy's L.A. How do crime narratives imagine the city and the country, the sprawling metropolis and the regional locale, urban decay and vanishing wilderness?

From Melbourne to Massachusetts, New Orleans to New Zealand, Botswana to Bankstown, from the Yorkshire moors to the Siberian tundra, from bayou to desert reservation: the scene of the crime and the journey of detection shape popular and literary crime fiction alike. 'The Scene of the Crime' asks, what is the relationship between crime fiction and representations of place?

Morning session-

Matt Mcguire: Ian Rankin's Edinburgh

Listen to Matt's paper (right click and "save link as" to download).   

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Sara Knox: 'An Englishman's Home is His Castle': the crimes of Alan Bennett

Listen to Sara's paper (right click and "save link as" to download).   

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Respondent: Jane Goodall. ‪Listen to Jane's response to Matt and Sara's papers (right click and "save link as" to download).

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Afternoon session-

Ross Gibson: "A Hammer is Struck in the Mind"

Novelist Pam Newton: reading from 'The Old School'