This dissertation deals with Swedish crime fiction and its successes on the Swedish book market in the early 2000s. The genre’s expansion, marketing and literary content is mapped and analysed in three studies that together paint a thorough picture of this literary phenomena in Swedish book trade. In study no 1 the development of the genre in Sweden in the last 40 years is discussed from a quantitative perspective. With the base in bibliographies of Swedish crime fiction publication trends are analysed in several ways and concerning topics such as genre growth, gender balance, publishing houses, successful authorships, bestsellers and library lending. The results include: a significant genre expansion in the 2000s; a great dominance for the genre on the bestseller charts in the 2000s; and a shift in the author group, from male dominance to even gender balance. In study no 2 the marketing of the genre is examined through an analysis of book covers, titles and other elements in the concrete packaging of just over 150 Swedish crime fiction paperbacks. With book history as an important theoretical influence book covers and other peritextual elements are understood as a significant part of the marketing of the genre, but also – and wider – as of crucial importance for how genres themselves are established, withheld and re-negotiated in the interplay between different actors in the society of literature – publishers, authors, booksellers, readers. In study no 3 a quantitative content analysis of 116 Swedish crime novels published 1998–2015 is used to chart and discuss recurring themes and tropes within the genre. Focus is primarily directed towards what is understood as the most central parts of crime fiction: murderers and their motives; methods used in committing murder; victims of murder; and detectives and other protagonists. The results include: a distinct dominance of female protagonists; a partial realism, where depictions of everyday life in general is realistic while the murder plots are spectacular and sensational; and a dominance of normality, where main characters and innocent victims confirms normality, while killers and unsympathetic victims are depicted as deviants in stark contrast with normality.

This thesis challenges the traditional view of the 'femme fatale' as merely a dangerous and ravenous sexual predator who leads men into ruination. Critical, especially feminist, scholarship mostly regards the femme fatale as a sexist construction of a male fantasy and treats her as an expression of misogyny that ultimately serves to reaffirm male authority. But this thesis proposes alternative ways of viewing the femme fatale by showing how she can also serve as a figure for imagining female agency. As such, I focus on a particular character type that is distinct from the general archetype of the femme fatale because of the greater degree of agency she demonstrates. This 'criminal femme fatale' uses her sexual appeal and irresistible wiles both to manipulate men and to commit criminal acts, usually murder, in order to advance her goals with deliberate intent and full culpability. This thesis reveals and explains the agency of the criminal femme fatales in American Hardboiled crime fiction between the late 1920s and the end of World War II in the works of three authors: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain. The criminal femme fatales in the narratives of these authors show a subversive power and an ability to act - even though, or perhaps only if, this action is a criminal one. I show that these criminal femme fatales exhibit agency through their efforts to challenge not only the 'masculine' genre and the criminal space that this genre represents, but also to undercut the male protagonist's role and prove his failure in asserting control and dominance. Hammett's narratives provide good examples of how the criminal femme fatales function on a par with male gangsters in an underworld of crime and corruption. Chandler's work demonstrates a different case of absent/present criminal women who are set against the detective and ultimately question his power and mastery. Cain's narratives show the agency of the criminal femme fatales in the convergence between their ambition for social mobility and their sexual power over the male characters. To explain how these female characters exhibit agency, I situate this body of literature alongside contemporaneous legal and medical discourses on female criminality. I argue that the literary female criminal is a fundamentally different portrayal because she breaks the 'mad-bad' woman dichotomy that dominates both legal and medical discourses on female criminality. I show that the criminal femme fatales' negotiations of female agency within hardboiled crime fiction fluctuate and shift between the two poles of the criminalized and the medicalized women. These criminal femme fatales exhibit culpability in their actions that bring them into an encounter with the criminal justice system and resist being pathologized as women who suffer from a psychological ailment that affect their control. The thesis concludes that the ways in which the criminal femme fatales trouble normative socio-cultural conceptions relating to docile femininity and passive sexuality, not only destabilize the totality and fixity of the stereotype of the femme fatale in hardboiled crime fiction, but also open up broader debates about the representation of women in popular culture and the intersections between genre and gender.

This paper analyzes how vulnerability is represented in the Jack Reacher series, by drawing onwork by Bryan Turner and Judith Butler. The purpose of the research is to investigate the reasonReacher’s acts of vigilantism are needed. I look at examples of vulnerability and precarity foundin the books Killing Floor and Die Trying, and argue that state neglect is the cause of economicand social vulnerability in the towns Margrave and Yorke, leading to precarity expressed ascriminal money and community subjugation controlling the towns. I conclude that the solutionpresented, through vigilantism, is reassuring but insufficient, but that the series, in representing acomplex display of vulnerability and acknowledging the insufficiency of the solution, stressesthe difficulty of presenting a simple solution to the multifaceted nature of the issue ofvulnerability.

The aim of this study is to investigate discourses related to Christianity in Swedish crime fiction. In doing this the top-selling books each year between 2004 and 2021 are examined. Furthermore, the purpose is to explore whether the identified discourses can be related to attitudes towards Christianity in Swedish society. The investigation is done using Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model for Critical Discourse Analysis. The result shows that the top-selling Swedish crime novels, written so far in the 21st century, mostly have a prejudiced attitude towards Christianity and are characterized by a general discourse of suspicion concerning this worldview. This is to some extent connected to conventions of the genre and the fact that there is a lack of nuance in what types of Christian practices that are described. It is however also notable that there is a similar discourse of suspicion towards Christianity in Swedish society.

This thesis explores women’s writing and its place in the formation of female film culture in the British silent cinema era. The project focuses upon women’s literary engagement with silent cinema as generative of a female film culture, looking at materials such as fan letters, fan magazines, popular novels, short story papers, novelizations, critical journals and newspaper criticism. Exploring this diverse range of women’s cinema writing, the thesis seeks to make an original contribution to feminist film historiography. Focusing upon the mediations between different kinds of women’s cinema writing, the thesis poses key questions about how the feminist film historian weights original sources in the reclamation of silent female film culture, relative to the varying degrees of cultural authority with which different women commentated upon, reflected upon, and creatively responded to film culture. The thesis moves away from conceptualization of cinema audiences and reception practices based upon textual readings. Instead, the thesis focuses upon evidence of women’s original accounts of their cinemagoing practices (fan letters) and their critical (newspaper and journal criticism) and creative (fiction writers) responses to cinema’s place in women’s everyday lives. Balancing original archival research with multiple overarching methodological frameworks—drawing upon fan theory, feminist reception theory, audience studies, social history and cultural studies—the thesis is attentive to the diversity of women’s experiences of cinema culture, and the literary conduits through which they channeled these experiences. Shifting the recent focus in feminist silent film historiography away from the reclamation of lost filmmaking female pioneers and towards lost female audiences, the thesis thus constructs a nationally specific account of British women’s silent era cinema culture.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo analisar as relações entre o gênero policial e os romances La pesquisa (1994), de Juan José Saer, e Plata quemada (1997), de Ricardo Piglia. Inseridos nas poéticas singulares e originais de seus autores, ambos os textos refletem, por um lado, as práxis narrativas que tanto Saer quanto Piglia já vinham desenvolvendo havia vários anos quando da publicação dos livros, nos anos noventa. Por outro lado, a leitura dos romances sob a perspectiva das narrativas policiais, frequentemente associadas a uma literatura popular ou de massas, leva à indagação de se e como é possível o desenvolvimento de uma escrita mais complexa e ambiciosa esteticamente em diálogo com as convenções que, em princípio, caracterizam o gênero literário. A partir desta questão, a hipótese de leitura se concentrará no conceito de transgressão dentro da literatura, partindo da ideia de Michel Foucault desenvolvida no ensaio Prefacio a la transgresión. A transgressão pensada na escrita de La pesquisa e Plata quemada, então, pode consistir em um gesto que, ao franquear os limites genéricos, não só reconfigura as poéticas de Saer e Piglia, como também repensa o conceito de gênero policial, bem como a relação dos dois escritores com o contexto cultural em que desenvolvem suas obras. / This study aims to analyze the relations between crime fiction as a literary genre and the novels La pesquisa [The investigation] (1994), by Juan José Saer, and Plata quemada [Burnt money] (1997), by Ricardo Piglia. Inserted into their author´s unique and original poetics, both texts reflect, on the one hand, the narrative praxis that both Saer and Piglia had already been developing for several years when the books were published in the nineties. On the other hand, the reading of the novels from the perspective of crime fiction, a genre often associated with popular or mass literature, leads to the question of how is it possible to develop a more complex and ambitious writing, aesthetically speaking, in dialog with the conventions that, in principle, distinguish the literary genre. From this point on, the hypothesis of reading will focus on the concept of transgression in literature, as it is developed by Michel Foucault in his essay Prefacio a la transgresión [A Preface to Transgression]. Back to the way La pesquisa and Plata quemada are conceived, the transgression can be figured out as a gesture that, by crossing the genre limits, not only reconfigure the way the narrative of Saer and Piglia could be read, but also rethink the crime fiction as a genre and the relations of both authors with the cultural context in which they develop their works.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:58:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cecilia Lara da Cruz.pdf: 1911618 bytes, checksum: 513402344e1247180a54afeefc085696 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-10-21 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This research investigates the connection between ethics and aesthetics in the representation of violence in the novel Cidade de Deus by Paulo Lins. The intense presence of violence in Brazilian history is articulated not only with forms and themes, but also with the ways artists express themselves, including in literature. The so-called crime fiction literature, which Cidade de Deus stands out as an example of, shows violence in an urban context as the main theme. This research aims to contribute to the studies on representations of violence and their meanings in literature and how that advanced Brazilian literary criticism, by analyzing the formal features and thematic aspects of the novel Cidade de Deus. We attempt to analyze the description of violence in the book, especially regarding the limits and representation possibilities within the ethical sphere, considering how it s impossible to represent the catastrophe. Issues we address are: the author s point of view and how he represents it; the outlines for representing extreme situations, which cannot be compared to anything other situation; the fact that the representation of violence brings implications to realism and the insight built by Paulo Lins and the possible connections between the representation of violence in the novel and the concepts of trauma, testimony, and melancholy, the way they have current been used in critical literary. The results show that Cidade de Deus can t be considered a testimonio due to the fact that this genre is set in post-dictatorial Latin America, despite its POV-style (Point of View) content, among other reasons, because it does not present a hesitant and unreliable narrator. We have also demonstrated that the insight s effect, hailed by critics, consists of literary and non-literary aspects and procedures. Moreover, we conclude and try to prove that Lins's novel is irregular, since it occasionally brings the representation of violence in order to encompass multiple meanings; in other times, it brings joy through stereotypical representations of violence. The theoretical framework is grounded in the proposals of Karl Erik Schollhammer, Tania Pellegrini, Jaime Ginzburg, Márcio Seligmann-Silva, Antonio Candido, Beatriz Resende and Hal Foster / Esta pesquisa consiste em investigar imbricamentos éticos e estéticos da representação da violência no romance Cidade de Deus, de Paulo Lins. A intensa e contínua presença da violência na História do Brasil está articulada tanto com as formas e os temas das manifestações artísticas brasileiras contemporâneas, inclusive as literárias, como com seus modos de produção e recepção. A chamada literatura marginal, da qual Cidade de Deus é um dos principais representantes, traz a violência, via contexto urbano, como protagonista. Procuramos apreender a inscrição da violência nesta obra, especialmente no que se refere aos limites e possibilidades de representação dentro da esfera da ética, considerando a própria impossibilidade da representação da catástrofe. As questões-problemas que abordamos dizem respeito à contaminação do ponto de vista e às questões de representatividade do autor; aos contornos dados para situações-limite, que não admitem termos de comparação; às implicações que a representação da violência traz ao realismo e à visão interna construídos por Paulo Lins, e às possibilidades de relação da representação da violência no romance com os conceitos de trauma, testemunho e melancolia, da forma como eles têm sido trabalhados na crítica literária atualmente. Os resultados mostram que Cidade de Deus não pode ser considerado um testimonio da forma como este gênero se configurou na América Latina pós-ditatorial, entre outras razões, pelo fato de não constituir um narrador hesitante e não confiável , não obstante seu teor testemunhal. Demonstramos também que o efeito visão interna , festejado pela fortuna crítica do romance, é constituído por procedimentos e aspectos literários e extraliterários. Ademais, concluímos e procuramos demonstrar que a irregularidade marca o romance de Lins, uma vez que ele nos traz, em algumas passagens, a representação da violência de forma a engendrar múltiplos sentidos; em outras passagens, deixa-se levar pela fruição de um deleite causado pela representação estereotipada da violência. A fundamentação teórica assenta-se nas propostas de Karl Erik Schollhammer, Tânia Pellegrini, Jaime Ginzburg, Márcio Seligmann-Silva, Antonio Candido, Beatriz Resende e Hal Foster

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:46:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Silvia de Paula Bezerra.pdf: 707701 bytes, checksum: 13e31c9b0820afc52ffce24cb9064e6e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-02-13 / Fundo Mackenzie de Pesquisa / In this paper we study the crime fiction and film O Invasor, focusing the success partnership between the writer Marçal Aquino and the film director Beto Brant. The path made by novel, screenplay and film was different from the usual, because Aquino ended writing the novel in 2002, after the release of the film in 2001. As primary purpose of this paper, we intend to demonstrate how the characters Ivan, Anísio, Giba/Alaor are developed in both novel and film. Therefore, this paper was divided in three chapters. First, we study the characters in the novel and in the screenplay, and their relations that give them verisimilitude. After that, we analyze the development of characters in cinema and the point of view that, in a movie, is determined by the camera and its movements. Furthermore, we present several aspects of film narrative, identifying those with great importance to the story development. Finally, we discuss about the main characteristics of crime fiction and film, as well as the relation between crime fiction and film in Brazil. About noir fiction and film, we examine their origins, influences and more relevant aspects to understand the novel written by Aquino. / Neste trabalho abordamos o romance e o filme policial O Invasor, destacando uma parceria de sucesso entre o romancista Marçal Aquino e o cineasta e diretor Beto Brant. O caminho entre romance, roteiro e filme foi transcorrido de forma diferente do habitual, pois Aquino finalizou a escrita do romance em 2002 após o lançamento do filme que ocorreu em 2001. Temos como objetivo principal do estudo em questão mostrar como as personagens Ivan, Anísio e Giba/Alaor são construídas no romance e no filme. Para tanto, o presente trabalho foi divido em três partes. Primeiramente, abordamos a questão das personagens no romance e no roteiro cinematográfico e as relações que lhe conferem verossimilhança. Depois tratamos da construção da personagem no cinema e do foco narrativo que, em um filme, é definido pela câmera e seus movimentos. Apresentamos também diversos aspectos da narrativa fílmica, identificando aqueles que possuem maior destaque para o desenvolvimento da história. Por fim, discorremos sobre as principais características do romance e do filme policial, bem como a relação entre literatura e cinema policial no Brasil. Quanto ao romance e ao filme policial noir, destacamos suas origens, influências e aspectos mais relevantes para situarmos o romance escrito por Marçal Aquino.

Mahojiano haya yamefanyika tarehe 11 Januari 2008, mjini Mainz, Ujerumani, wakati wa Kongamano la Tisa la Janheinz Jahn “Beyond ‘murder by magic’: investigating African crime fiction” lililofanyika Chuo Kikuu cha Mainz.

One of the most striking features of contemporary Scottish fiction has been its shift from the predominantly realist novels of the 1960s and 1970s to an engagement with very different modes of writing, from the mixture of realism and visionary future satire in Alasdair Gray’s Lanark (1981) to the Rabelaisian absurdity and excess of Irvine Welsh’s Filth (1998). This development has received considerable critical attention, energising debates concerning how such writing relates to or challenges familiar tropes of identity and national culture. At the same time, however, there has been a very striking and commercially successful rise in the production of popular genre literature in Scotland, in categories which have included speculative fiction and crime fiction. Although Scottish literary fiction of recent decades has been studied in great depth, Scottish popular genre literature has received considerably less critical scrutiny in comparison. Therefore, the aim of my research is to examine popular Scottish writing of the stated period in order to reflect upon whether a significant relationship can be discerned between genre fiction and the mainstream of Scottish literary fiction, and to consider the characteristics of such a connection between these different modes of writing. To achieve this objective, the dissertation will investigate whether the features of any such shared literary concerns are inclined to vary between the mainstream of literary fiction in Scotland and two different, distinct forms of popular genre writing. My research will take up the challenge of engaging with the popular genres of speculative fiction and crime fiction during the years 1975 to 2006. I intend to discuss the extent to which the national political and cultural climate of the period under discussion informed the narrative form and social commentary of such works, and to investigate the manner in which, and the extent to which, a specific and identifiably Scottish response to these ideological matters can be identified in popular prose fiction during this period. This will be done by discussing and comparing eight novels in total; four for each chosen popular genre. From the field of speculative fiction, I will examine texts by the authors Iain M. Banks, Ken MacLeod, Margaret Elphinstone and Matthew Fitt. The discussion will then turn to crime fiction, with an analysis of novels by Ian Rankin, Christopher Brookmyre, Denise Mina and Louise Welsh. As well as evaluating the work of each author and its relevance to other texts in the field, consideration will be given to the significance of each novel under discussion to wider considerations of ideology, genre and national identity which were ongoing both at the time of their publication and in subsequent years. The dissertation’s conclusion will then consider the nature of the relationship between the popular genres which have been examined and the mainstream of Scottish literary fiction within the period indicated above.