Place and Community in Contemporary Anglophone Crime Fiction
Provider: Grantová agentura ČR
Programme: Standardní projekty
Implementation period: 01.01.19 - 31.12.21
Workplace:
Fakulta filozofická - Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky
Investigator: Bubíková ŠárkaTeam member: Roebuck Olga
Description:
In recent decades, the popular genre of crime fiction has increasingly involved presentations of a specific place (be it urban or rural) and community (defined variously in terms of its location, class, and/or ethnicity) and their mutual interconnectedness or dependence. Thus apart from providing the obvious thrill of the mystery, many recent crime novels also create a literary form of social geography and provide a keen social commentary and literary topography, often with the aim of educating its readers or raising their cultural and ethnic awareness. The project will analyze a body of contemporary Anglophone crime novels with two-fold focus, i.e. on their presentation of place and on the community inhabiting the place, and it will explore how place is presented not as a mere setting but as a location with history, defined thus both in terms of space and (social) time.
In recent decades, the popular genre of crime fiction has increasingly involved presentations of a specific place (be it urban or rural) and community (defined variously in terms of its location, class, and/or ethnicity) and their mutual interconnectedness or dependence. Thus apart from providing the obvious thrill of the mystery, many recent crime novels also create a literary form of social geography and provide a keen social commentary and literary topography, often with the aim of educating its readers or raising their cultural and ethnic awareness. The project will analyze a body of contemporary Anglophone crime novels with two-fold focus, i.e. on their presentation of place and on the community inhabiting the place, and it will explore how place is presented not as a mere setting but as a location with history, defined thus both in terms of space and (social) time.
