O passado como um grande mistério. O professor de história como um investigador. Aquilo que se passou como um acontecimento, com Deleuze, a fissura em qualquer percepção que busca extrair um sentido dele mesmo. A narrativa literária como expressão de falar com os romances, e não sobre eles. A leitura e a escrita, simultaneamente, como procedimento de pesquisa. As tipologias históricas como composição de personagens. O problema de pesquisa que incita o drama. A presente dissertação busca produzir, na superfície da própria escrita, aquilo que propõe como tema. Por isso, a narrativa do ensino de história é expressa como um romance policial: as revisões bibliográficas como flashbacks, as problemáticas como reviravoltas e as conclusões como clímax (ou a espera por ele). Romance noir; onde a verdade é mais negociável e depende mais das paixões de quem a busca do que pelo comprometimento com o conhecimento; o acaso tem sua função; e um mistério leva a outro, e assim por diante. No assassinato que impulsiona a trama, não mais um fato, onde as perguntas do mistério de enigma seriam quem, como ou por que; mas sim o acontecimento, onde os efeitos se expandem pelo vazio deixado por ele. / The past as a great mystery. The history teacher as an investigator. What happened as an event, with Deleuze, the perception that any fissure in search extract a sense of himself. The literary narrative as an expression to speak to the novels, and not about them. Reading and writing simultaneously as a research procedure. The historical typologies as composite characters. The research problem that incites the drama. This dissertation seeks to produce, on the surface of the writing itself, what it proposes as theme. Therefore, the narrative of history teaching is expressed as a detective story: the literature reviews as flashbacks, problems such as turns and conclusions climax (or wait for it). Romance noir, where the truth is negotiable and depends more on the passions of those who search for their commitment to knowledge; chance has its function, and a mystery leads to another, and so on. In murder that drives the plot, not one more fact, which questions the mystery of who would riddle, how or why, but the event, where the effects expand the void left by him.

Esta tese investiga de que forma a ficção contemporânea de língua portuguesa encontra possibilidades de resistência à crise do romance que tem se estabelecido na contemporaneidade. As obras dos autores Bernardo Carvalho e Francisco José Viegas, inscritos no início do século XXI, permitem verificar como a ficção da era atual suplanta a crise da narrativa e inscreve-se como elemento de resistência. Com base nas teorias de Walter Benjamim, Theodor Adorno, Zygmunt Bauman e Andreas Huyssen - acerca do declínio da narrativa e do romance aliadas a questões de deslocamento, memória e identidade procuramos demonstrar que essa ficção responde a um momento de crise e de transição. Assim, a ficção dos autores investigados representa não a crise do romance, antes configurase como romance da crise, justamente por encontrar nas questões conflitantes (transgressão narrativa, deslocamento espacial, diluição da memória e identidades fluídas) os muros para a construção de seu labirinto ficcional. / This thesis investigates how the contemporary fiction of Portuguese language meets possibilities of resistance to the crisis of the romance that has established in the contemporaneity. The titles of the authors Bernardo Carvalho and Francisco José Viegas, registered in the beginning of the 21st century, allow examining how the fiction from the current era supplants the narrative crisis and inscribes itself as a resistance element. Based in the theories of Walter Benjamim, Theodor Adorno, Zygmunt Bauman and Andreas Huyssen about the decline of the narrative and the romance allied to questions of displacement, memory and identity we try to demonstrate that this fiction responds to a moment of crisis and transition. Thus, the fiction of the authors investigated represents not the crisis of the romance, before, it configures itself as romance of the crisis, justly for meeting in the conflicting questions (narrative transgression, spatial displacement, dilution of the memory and fluid identities) the walls for the construction of its fictional labyrinth.

O passado como um grande mistério. O professor de história como um investigador. Aquilo que se passou como um acontecimento, com Deleuze, a fissura em qualquer percepção que busca extrair um sentido dele mesmo. A narrativa literária como expressão de falar com os romances, e não sobre eles. A leitura e a escrita, simultaneamente, como procedimento de pesquisa. As tipologias históricas como composição de personagens. O problema de pesquisa que incita o drama. A presente dissertação busca produzir, na superfície da própria escrita, aquilo que propõe como tema. Por isso, a narrativa do ensino de história é expressa como um romance policial: as revisões bibliográficas como flashbacks, as problemáticas como reviravoltas e as conclusões como clímax (ou a espera por ele). Romance noir; onde a verdade é mais negociável e depende mais das paixões de quem a busca do que pelo comprometimento com o conhecimento; o acaso tem sua função; e um mistério leva a outro, e assim por diante. No assassinato que impulsiona a trama, não mais um fato, onde as perguntas do mistério de enigma seriam quem, como ou por que; mas sim o acontecimento, onde os efeitos se expandem pelo vazio deixado por ele. / The past as a great mystery. The history teacher as an investigator. What happened as an event, with Deleuze, the perception that any fissure in search extract a sense of himself. The literary narrative as an expression to speak to the novels, and not about them. Reading and writing simultaneously as a research procedure. The historical typologies as composite characters. The research problem that incites the drama. This dissertation seeks to produce, on the surface of the writing itself, what it proposes as theme. Therefore, the narrative of history teaching is expressed as a detective story: the literature reviews as flashbacks, problems such as turns and conclusions climax (or wait for it). Romance noir, where the truth is negotiable and depends more on the passions of those who search for their commitment to knowledge; chance has its function, and a mystery leads to another, and so on. In murder that drives the plot, not one more fact, which questions the mystery of who would riddle, how or why, but the event, where the effects expand the void left by him.

Este estudo parte de uma visão teórica da literatura policial para analisar obras de três escritores latino-americanos: Machado de Assis, Jorge Luis Borges e Roberto Bolaño. O objetivo é fornecer um novo subsídio teórico para a leitura destes autores e, por outro lado, aprofundar a visão sobre o gênero policial no Brasil, ampliando, a partir dele, as discussões relacionadas à teoria literária. A causa secreta é um conto contemporâneo ao marco do nascimento do gênero policial nos Estados Unidos, com Edgar Allan Poe. Neste momento em que a literatura policial ainda não está consolidada, Machado de Assis cria também um personagem apaixonado pela análise dos caracteres humanos, o médico Garcia. Desde o título, como nos livros policiais, o leitor está procurando um segredo, cuja solução depende de sua confiança na autoridade narrativa, mas, em última análise, nunca pode ser realmente liquidado, porque nele reside o enigma fundamental da literatura: a impossibilidade de apropriação do Outro. Em El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan, Jorge Luis Borges usa o gênero para travar uma discussão sobre o tempo na narrativa e revolve o relato sobre si mesmo, usando uma autoinserção temporal. Foi considerado, assim, uma subversão na medida em que, pretensamente, destrói as balizas de gênero. Entretanto, segundo Jacques Derrida, um gênero é formado não só de marcas que identificam uma obra com a outra, mas também por alterações dentro da forma, que aumentam os limites genéricos. Desta forma, Borges, do ponto de vista da literatura policial, ajuda a criar um novo subgênero, o policial metafísico. Desde a perspectiva de um novo policial que discute seu próprio estatuto, analisamos o romance do escritor chileno Roberto Bolaño, Los detectives salvajes, em que lemos a história da busca de uma pessoa que, na verdade, está morta e só sabemos de sua morte no final da narrativa. Isso opera uma diferença fundamental: esta obra narra pela lente do luto, enquanto no policial esta dimensão é suplantada pela necessidade da intriga. De outra forma, o percurso dos personagens também responde à sombra do enigma que é a voz do Outro. A literatura policial, assim, é um gênero caracterizado por uma busca incessante, motivada por um enigma que o detetive precisa solucionar. Tradicionalmente, esta demanda é bem sucedida. Entretanto, nunca vemos o personagem, satisfeito por mais um trabalho resolvido, voltar para casa, o que prova que, de alguma forma, nem ele mesmo está convencido da solução do enigma. O segredo, portanto, exige uma dedicação infinita. De alguma forma, o personagem modelar do detetive reflete o trabalho do crítico literário. A busca incessante, o solilóquio que esconde o enigma, a necessidade de autoridade narrativa são questões importantes do nosso trabalho. Qual seria a responsabilidade, portanto, do crítico? Estaria disposto a sacrificar sua autoridade pela verdade? / This research begins with a theoretical vision of crime fiction to analyze works of three Latin-american authors: Machado de Assis, Jorge Luis Borges and Roberto Bolaño. The objective is to offer a new theoretical basis for reading these writers and also to deepen the study of crime fiction in Brazil, widening, thus, the debates regarding literary theory. A causa secreta is a short story contemporary of the birth of crime fiction in the United States, with Edgar Allan Poe. In that moment, when crime fiction wasnt consolidated yet, Machado de Assis also created a character passionate for the analysis of human character, doctor Garcia. From the title, as to the mystery book itself, the reader is looking for a secret, and the solution will only be brought through the readers distrust of the narrative settings. But the enigma, in fact, can never be solved because within it there is the fundamental secret of literature: the impossibility of appropriation of the Other. In El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan Jorge Luis Borges uses the genre to discuss time in fiction and turns the narrative upon itself by creating a temporal auto insertion. It is considered, thus, a subversion as it allegedly destroys the laws of the genre. However, according to Jacques Derrida, a genre is formed not only by the marks that defines it, but also by the alterations within its form, which enlarges its limits. In this way, through the point of view of crime fiction, Borges contributes to create a new subgenre: the metaphysical crime fiction. Through the perspective of a new crime fiction that questions its own statute, we analyzed the novel Los detectives salvajes, by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño, in which we read the story of a search of a person who, actually, is already dead, and we only get to know it in the end of the novel. This operates a structural difference: the book narrates through the lens of mourning, while in crime fiction this sentiment is superseded by the necessity of intrigue. In another way, the course of those characters also responds to the shadows of the enigma that is the voice of the Other. Crime fiction, thus, is a genre based on a relentless quest, motivated by an enigma that the detective has to solve. Traditionally, this demand is well succeeded. But we never see the detective, satisfied after another job well done, going back home, which proves that, in a way, not even he is convinced that the enigma is solved. In a way, the model character of the detective reflects, as some authors suggest, the work of the literary critic. The endless search, the monologue that hides the enigma, the necessity of narrative authority all this elements are important to our work. Then, what is the responsibility of the critic? Is he willing to sacrifice his authority for the truth?

Este estudo consiste em uma análise dos elementos e estratégias constitutivos da prosa de Antonio Tabucchi, especificamente observados no romance Notturno Indiano. O romance apresenta-se sob a forma de uma viagem em busca de alguém que se perdeu na Índia, sugerindo uma questão policial. A questão policial será enfocada em consonância como o método investigativo, que se insinua por todo corpo textual, e a sua relação com o desvio de um capítulo. Margeado pela reversão entre ficção e crítica este romance breve afirma-se como referência ilusória que mascara, mas não esconde, as outras vozes que se insinuam na narrativa / The present study is an analysis of the elements and strategies which constitutes Antonio Tabucchi\'s prose, specifically observed in the novel Notturno Indiano. The novel\'s plot is about a journey in which a search for somebody who got lost in India suggests a detective question. This detective story will be treated in consonance with the investigative method which is insinuated through the whole text, and its relation with the deviation of a chapter. Framed by the reverse between fiction and criticism, this short novel shows itself as an illusory reference that masks but does not hide the other voices which insinuate themselves into the narrative

De 1945 à 1950, le roman américain impose sa présence dans le paysage littéraire en France et apparaît alors comme un modèle susceptible de renouveler le roman français. Notre thèse est consacrée à ce moment américain du roman français qui s’ouvre à la Libération. La publication de romans américanisés s’accroît et suscite un intérêt constant de la critique, tantôt enthousiasmée, tantôt scandalisée par les conséquences de l’injection de ce « sang neuf » dans les veines du roman français. Les romanciers « légitimes » — Sartre, Des Forêts, Vailland — sont attirés par cette ressource miraculeuse tout autant que les auteurs de romans policiers — Simenon, Malet, Meckert — qui quant à eux cherchent profiter du succès du hard boiled. Simultanément, deux voies d’appropriation du matériau américain se dessinent : les romanciers « sérieux » s’en emparent brièvement, mais passent assez vite de la fascination à la désillusion ; les auteurs de roman policier, quant à eux, transforment un réflexe d’imitation pure en une assimilation féconde. L’ensemble de ce phénomène a été peu étudié. Notre travail a pour objectif de mettre au jour cette voie américaine, empruntée par un vaste groupe de romanciers français, de manière d’autant plus fructueuse qu’ils se servirent du matériau états-unien comme point de départ d’une expérimentation littéraire, mais aussi d’une affirmation de leur propre identité romanesque. En réexaminant la dette du roman français vis à vis de celui venu d’outre Atlantique, nous redonnons à ce fulgurant moment américain qui constitue une transition entre les changements opérés par les avant gardes des années 1920 et la révolution du Nouveau Roman. / From 1945 to 1950, the American Novel promulgates his presence on the French literary scenery and appears as a model beyond compare to renew the French novel. Our thesis is dedicated to this American moment of the French novel that opens at the Liberation. The publication of Americanized novels increases and creates a constant interest from the literary critics, sometimes enthusiast, sometimes outraged by the consequences of this “new-blood” injection in the French novel’s veins. “Legitimate” novelists, such as Sartre, Des Forêts, Vailland, are actually as attracted by this miraculous resource as the detective novel writers, such as Simenon, Malet, Meckert, who are the first willing to benefit from the hard boiled success. Simultaneously, two different ways to seize the American substance are appearing: the “serious” novelists embrace it briefly, but go from fascination to disappointment; as to the detective novel writers, they transform a sheer imitation reflex into fertile assimilation. Yet, all those novels have not often been studied. Our work is aiming to expose this American path, taken by a vast panel of French novelists, in an even more so profitable manner since they used the American material as a starting point, an experimentation opportunity, but also as a way to assert their own fictional identity. By reexamining the French novel’s debt towards the one from across the Atlantic, we hope to confer all its significance to this dazzling American moment that establishes the transition between the changes made by the avant gardes in the twenties and the ones undertaken by the New Novelists.

This thesis provides the first extensive queer reading of a 'Golden Age' British detective fiction writer. The aim of this thesis is to assess queer potential in texts published by Agatha Christie between 1920 and 1952. Human identity can be read as self-consciously constructed in Christie's novels, which were written in a context of two world wars, advances in technology and communication, and what Michel Foucault called the 'medicalization' of Western culture. The self-conscious stereotyping in Christie's prose undermines her texts' conservative appeal to the status quo. Chapter One justifies this project's critique of identity essentialism in the texts by considering the manufacturing of 'Agatha Christie' as a widely-read celebrity author. Reading Christie's authorial identity as something established and refined through a market-driven response to readers' expectations and a conscious engagement with earlier forms of detective fiction provides space for reading identity itself as a stylized, performative, and sometimes parodic theme within the texts. In subsequent chapters, employing theoretical insights from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, and Lee Edelman, I explore Christie's participation in contemporary debates surrounding masculinity, femininity, and the importance of the family in shaping individual identity. Finally, I consider Christie's reputation in the twenty-first century by exploring nostalgic television adaptations of her work. Comparing the presentation of 'queer' characters in the literary texts to the adaptations' use of explicit homosexual themes and characters, I conclude that there is a stronger potential for 'queering' identity in the former. As the first full queer reading of a 'Golden Age' detective novelist, this thesis expands queer notions of archive and canonicity: few scholars to date have considered mainstream literary texts without overt LGBTQ+ themes or characters from a queer perspective. Given Christie's global reach and appeal, locating queerness in her texts means understanding queerness as fundamental to everyday culture. This means engaging with a subversive potential in twentieth century middlebrow conservatism.

Nombre de lectures concernant la fiction d’espionnage de John le Carré s’accordent sur la place particulière que celle-ci occupe au sein du genre. Pourtant, aucune ne met en regard la spécificité des romans et de l’écriture le carréenne, avec ses emprunts au roman de détection ou au roman américain hard-boiled, et le contexte politique, philosophique et épistémologique. Lorsque les premiers romans de le Carré sont publiés, dans les années 1960, le monde connaît d’importants bouleversements sociaux et politiques. Si de nouveaux enjeux naissent alors dans le roman d’espionnage, et si la fiction de John le Carré fait partie de celles qui incarnent ces changements, on retrouve plus particulièrement chez l’auteur les marques de la rupture épistémologique des années 1960 : flexibilité des valeurs morales au sein des services de renseignements, vide dogmatique, et parfois idéologique, chez l’agent professionnel, ou encore remise en cause de l’Histoire, qui est perçue chez le Carré comme le résultat d’actes de manipulation. Ainsi, en entrant dans l’ère du soupçon, telle qu’elle est dépeinte et magnifiée dans le monde secret de le Carré, son oeuvre offre un reflet des inquiétudes qui marquent la postmodernité de la fin du XXe siècle. Pourtant, l’oeuvre s’en éloigne d’un autre côté en ce qu’il ne renvoie pas à un vertige sans fin du sens ou une absence totale de vérité. Il laisse la possibilité au héros d’évoluer et d’apprendre. D’un point de vue littéraire, bien que le Carré suive le modèle d’écriture du roman d’espionnage, il l’a aussi en partie refaçonné de l’intérieur en le tirant du côté du roman policier et de la quête de vérité mais aussi en l’enrichissant des questions postmodernes. L’oeuvre de l’auteur se retrouve donc à une position médiane : il est entré dans la postmodernité sans toutefois céder à l’excès de la multiplicité ou du chaos et il continue d’utiliser les conventions d’un genre qu’il maniepour les faire évoluer vers une réflexion sur la place de l’être humain / Many readings of John le Carré’s spy fiction agree on its particular position within the genre. However, none link the specificity of the le carrean novels and writings, borrowing from the detective novel and the American hard-boiled novel, to the political, philosophical and epistemological context. When the first novels by John le Carré were published, in the 1960s, the world was facing great political and social upheavals. If new elements are then apparent in the spy novel, and if le Carré’s fiction is one of those which embodies these changes, traces of the epistemological break of the 1960s is clear in the author’s works: the flexibility of the moral values within the secret services, the dogmatic, and sometimes ideological, void in the professional agent, or again the reassessment of History, perceived as the result of acts of manipulation in le carrean fiction. Therefore, while his work enters the era of suspicion, as described and magnified in the covert world of John le Carré, it is a reflection of the anxieties specific to postmodernity at the end of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, on the other hand, the novels drift away from this as they do not convey an endless multiplication of meanings or a total absence of truth. The hero has the possibility of evolving and learning in his novels. From a literary standpoint, although le Carré follows the writing pattern of the spy novel, he has also partly reshaped it from the inside when he brought it towards the detective novel and the quest for truth and when he enriched it with postmodern questions. His work therefore occupies an in-between position: it has entered postmodernity without giving way to the excess of multiplicity or chaos, and it has continued to use the genre conventions to make them evolve towards a reflection on the place of the human being

La simple évocation du nom d’Arsène Lupin suscite l’assurance d’un divertissement mené jusqu’à son terme jubilatoire. Il ouvre en nous les portes d’un imaginaire plaisant, fait de mystères historiques, de richesses et d’aventures mémorables. Aussitôt le nom fabuleux prononcé qu’émerge une silhouette qui nous agrée, celle bien connue d’un cambrioleur rieur, séducteur et justicier. Un personnage au-dessus des lois et des toits, hors du commun, frondeur et dont les multiples aventures posent les pierres fondatrices d’un art nouveau en littérature. Apparu pour la première fois en 1905, au sein du magazine Je sais tout, le gentleman-cambrioleur a connu, depuis, une remarquable et incomparable longévité. Depuis, le personnage d’Arsène Lupin ne cesse de fasciner et de féconder l’imagination de ses lecteurs jusqu’à phagocyter le nom même de son créateur. Maurice Leblanc est alors un nom qui tombe dans l’oubli tandis que celui d’Arsène Lupin acquiert de son côté une certaine autonomie. Tout au long de leurs multiples parutions, Les aventures extraordinaires d’Arsène Lupin déploient un éventail de textes particulièrement propices à de nouvelles explorations génériques et esthétiques, un réservoir expérimental et fondamental à l’élaboration d’une réflexion nouvelle sur le roman policier en France / The simple evocation of Arsène Lupin causes the insurance of an entertainment carried out until its hilarious term. He opens in us the doors of imaginary pleasant, made historical mysteries, memorable wealths and adventures. At once the marked fabulous name that a silhouette emerges which approved us, that well-known of a merry, tempting and retributive burglar. A character above laws and of the roofs, out of commun run, critical and whose multiple adventures pose the stones founders of an art nouveau in literature. Appeared for the first time in 1905, within the magazine I know all, the gentleman-burglar knew, since, remarkable and incomparable longevity. Since, the character of Arsène Lupin does not cease fascinating and fertilizing the imagination of his readers until phagocytosing the name even of his creator. Maurice Leblanc is then a name which falls into the lapse of memory while that of Arsène Lupin acquires on his side a certain autonomy. Throughout their multiple publications, the extraordinary adventures of Arsène Lupin deploy a range of texts particularly favourable with new generic and aesthetic explorations, an experimental and fundamental tank with the development of a new reflection on the detective novel in France.

The career path of African American novelist Chester Himes is often characterised as a u-turn. Himes grew to recognition in the 1940s as a writer of the Popular Front, and a pioneer of the era's black 'protest' fiction. However, after falling out of domestic favour in the early 1950s, Himes emigrated to Paris, where he would go on to publish eight Harlem-set detective novels (1957-1969) for Gallimard's La Série Noire. Himes's 'black' noir fiction brought him critical and commercial success amongst a white European readership, and would later gain a cult status amongst an African American readership in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Himes's post-'protest' career has been variously characterised as a commercialist 'selling out'; an embracing of black 'folk' populism; and an encounter with Black Atlantic modernism. This thesis analyses the Harlem Cycle novels in relation to Himes's career, and wider debates regarding postwar African American literature and race relations.Fundamentally, I argue that a move into commercial formula fiction did not curtail Himes's critical interest in issues of power, exploitation, and racial inequality. Rather, it refocused his literary 'protest' to representational politics itself, and popular culture's ability to inscribe racial identity, resistance and exploitation. On the one hand, Himes's Harlem fiction meets a formulaic and commercial demand for images of 'pathological' black urban criminality. However, Himes, operating 'behind enemy lines', uses the texts to dramatise this very dynamic. Himes's pulp novels depict a heightened Harlem that is thematically 'pulped' by a logic of capitalist exploitation, and a fetishistic dominant of racial difference. In doing so, Himes's formula fiction makes visible certain anti-progressive shifts in the analysis and representation of postwar race relations. My methodology mirrors the multiple operations of the texts, placing Himes's detective fiction in relation to a diverse and interdisciplinary range of sources: literary, historical, and theoretical. Using archival material, I look in detail at Himes's public image and contemporary reception as a Série Noire writer, his professional correspondence with French and U.S. literary agents, and his private thoughts and later reflections regarding his career. This methodology attempts to get to grips with a literary triangulation between Himes's progressive authorial intentions, the demands placed upon him as a Série Noire writer, and the wider ideological shifts of the postwar era. By exploring these different historical, geographical and literary contexts, this thesis offers a wide-reaching analysis of how cultural and racial meanings are produced and negotiated within a commodity form.