Teaching Crime Fiction Criticism

Abstract

This chapter addresses how crime fiction criticism can be taught at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, offering teaching strategies, specific assignments, and suggestions for effective pedagogy. Course contexts include online and in-person delivery, courses dedicated to crime fiction, and classes that incorporate crime fiction as one part of thematic or period-based literary study. Examples are drawn from English, American, and Scandinavian crime fiction. The chapter begins with an overview of the field’s development and current status, presents teaching strategies and results, suggests potential resources, and closes with a case study of a postgraduate seminar in American crime fiction.