Some people were asking about what "The Curious Case of the Adapted Detective" looks like, so here it is. Bear in mind that this is my department's upper-division theory seminar, so that the post-Doyle Holmes universe becomes a case study for talking about adaptation, appropriation, and the sometimes exceptionally fuzzy line between the two. Because of in-class tech constraints, we're dealing with fairly conventional media--novels, film, TV--but the students have leeway to research Whatever They Want, which, when it comes to Sherlock Holmes, is a stunningly wide range of material...
Given the immense quantities of Holmes out there, and the necessity of giving the students ample time to prep and discuss the secondary texts, I had to make some v. sad decisions--chief among them being that I wound up eliminating the RDJ/Law Holmes (OK, I don't actually like the films as Holmes films, but they're significant in terms of certain trends). Ultimately, for pedagogical purposes, I opted for a straight run of variants on the Hound, giving us a baseline for comparison.
The class assumes no prior knowledge of the original stories. The literary pastiches come in groups: two very different (and either bleak or sardonic) accounts of how the Holmes/Watson partnership "ended"; two attempts to rethink Holmes and his methods in the context of WWII and the Holocaust; and two more...unusual...takes on the canon.
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WEEK 1 (1/28) |
Introduction and tour A Study in Scarlet |
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WEEK 2 (2/4) |
“A Scandal in Bohemia,” “The Five Orange Pips," “The Speckled Band,” “The Engineer’s Thumb” (Adventures) Leslie Haynsworth, “Sensational Adventures: Sherlock Holmes and His Generic Past” (Project Muse) Hound of the Baskervilles |
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WEEK 3 (2/11) |
Hound of the Baskervilles Watch “A Scandal in Bohemia” ($1.99 on Amazon Instant Video, or you may borrow DVD from me); Hutcheon, Theory of Adaptation, ch. 1 1st group presents: Hutcheon, ch. 2 |
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WEEK 4 (2/18) |
Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) Short paper due 2/22 |
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WEEK 5 (2/25) |
2nd group presents: McFarlane, Novel to Film, Pt. I Dibdin, Last Sherlock Holmes Story 3rd group presents: Sanders, Adaptation and Appropriation, chs. 2, 7 |
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WEEK 6 (3/4) |
Dibdin, Last Sherlock Holmes Story Marowitz, Sherlock’s Last Case |
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WEEK 7 (3/11) |
Individual meetings with instructor; prospectus due 3/15 |
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WEEK 8 (3/18)—Spring break |
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WEEK 9 (3/25) |
Chabon, The Final Solution 4th group presents: Stef Craps and Gert Buelens, “Traumatic Mirrorings: Holocaust and Colonial Trauma in Michael Chabon’s The Final Solution” (Project Muse) Research discussion day—post queries and finds to the Wiki Annotated bibliography due 3/29 |
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WEEK 10 (4/1) |
Cullin, A Slight Trick of the Mind |
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WEEK 11 (4/8) |
Vote by 4/1: watch EITHER the Livanov Hound of the Baskervilles OR the Brett Hound of the Baskervilles, both available on Amazon 5th group presents: Neil Caw, Adapting Detective Fiction: Crime, Englishness and the TV Detectives, ch. 2 (eBrary) |
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WEEK 12 (4/15) |
Watch The Hounds of Baskerville from Sherlock, season 2, available on Amazon 6th group presents: Balaka Basu, “Sherlock and the (Re)Invention of Modernity,” Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom (eBooks Library) Read through the fictional “blogs” and “tweets” by the Sherlock characters: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018ttws/features/disclaimer Newman, The Hound of the D’Urbervilles, “Preface,” “A Volume in Vermilion” |
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WEEK 13 (4/22) |
Newman, The Hound of the D’Urbervilles, title story Gaiman, “A Study in Emerald” (http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories) Research presentations |
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WEEK 14 (4/29) |
Research presentations |
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WEEK 15 (5/6) |
Research presentations Final reflections and individual conferencing Research projects due Monday of finals week |
Boy, would I have liked to be able to have taken such a course when I was an undergraduate.
Have you heard of Black Coat Press? They specialize in translations of vintage French genre literature (mystery, thriller, SF, fantasy)into English. Some of their stuff is Sherlockian. For example this is from 1909 (yes,there were pasticles in French even before the canon was complete!)
http://www.blackcoatpress.com/arsenelupin.htm
Black Coat also has some contemporary fiction originally written in English,including at least one modern Sherlockian pastiche.
The main page on their website is here:
http://www.blackcoatpress.com/
I don't have any of the Black Coat Sherlockian stuff, but I have some of their other books and recommend them highly.
Now, if someone would just start a publisher specializing in translations of vintage German genre literature...
Posted by: Nemo | February 01, 2013 at 07:30 PM
The Jeremy Brett version of Scandal in Bohemia is available on Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou_CarzFiEM
Posted by: Bill | February 02, 2013 at 05:14 AM
Thank you.
Posted by: CJColucci | February 04, 2013 at 05:09 PM