The Golden Age of Crime: A
Re-Evaluation
A 2-day international
conference at the University of Chester
3-4 April 2020
The
Golden Age of crime fiction, roughly defined as puzzle-based mystery fiction
produced between the First and Second World Wars, is enjoying a renaissance
both in the literary marketplace and in scholarship. This conference intervenes
in emerging academic debates to define and negotiate the boundaries of Golden
Age scholarship.
As
well as interrogating the staples of ‘Golden Age’ crime (the work of Agatha
Christie and/or Ellery Queen, the puzzle format, comparisons to ‘the
psychological turn’), this conference will look at under-explored elements of
the publishing phenomenon.
We
invite proposals for 20-minute papers or panel presentations of one hour.
Topics can include, but are by no means limited to, the following:
Defining
the parameters of Golden Age crime
The
Queens of Crime (Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio
Marsh, Josephine Tey, Gladys Mitchell)
Significant
male writers of the Golden Age (John Dickson Carr, Anthony Berkeley, Ellery
Queen)
Lesser-known
Golden Age practitioners
Collaborative
and round robin novels
Continuation
novels
The
Detection Club
Parody,
pastiche, and postmodernism
Psychology
and psychoanalysis
Meta-fiction
and self- or inter-referentiality
The
language of crime fiction
The
Golden Age and social value
Nostalgia
and heritage
Writing
the past
Gender,
sexuality, and queerness
Clues
and coding
Crime
and the Gothic
Magic
and the supernatural
Place,
space, and psychogeography
Reissues
and rediscovery
Archival
finds and innovations
The
‘Second Golden Age’
The
influence of Golden Age crime writers on subsequent and contemporary writers
Interdisciplinary
perspectives
Teaching
Golden Age crime fiction
Organisers: Dr J C Bernthal
(University of Cambridge), Sarah Martin (University of Chester), Stefano
Serafini (Royal Holloway, University of London)
We
welcome academic and creative paper proposals. Please email your 200-word
proposal and short biographical note to goldenageofcrime@gmail.com no
later than 15th December. Comments and queries
should be directed to the same address.
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