The course traces the history and evolution of this enduringly popular genre in order to better understand its appeal, its conventions and its thematic preoccupations. By following the trail of famous detectives like C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, students will become detectives themselves, investigating clues from the texts to try to solve the mysteries that the genre explores: the tangled web of human motivation, the dark undercurrents of society and culture and the paradoxes and puzzles in discovering the “truth.” By the end of the course, students will increase their appreciation for the history of the genre and be able to identify the way in which certain texts pay homage to, critique, or subvert genre conventions in a continual socio-cultural commentary.