Noir, The University of Liverpool, 2010-2011

A third year undergraduate module that examines the rise of noir in the American crime writing culture, the transformation of noir into neo-noir, the relationship between prose and their film adaptations, and on themes such as the divided self, compulsion and the doppelganer, escape, and the role of women in noir. Students were assessed through written assignments and an exam.

Both written works and film were considered, including prose (and one graphic novel) such as: Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, Graham Greene's Brighton Rock, Gerald Kersh's Night and the City, James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, Dashiell Hammett's The Glass Key and Red Harvest, Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely, Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock, Vera Caspary's Laura, Dorothy B. Hughes' In A Lonely Place, Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train, Vladimir Nabokov's The Eye, Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy and Frank Miller's Sin City: The Hard Goodbye.

Films on the module included: Fritz Lang's Metropolis and M, John Boulting's Brighton Rock, Dassin's Night and the City, Stuart Heisler's The Glass Key, John Huston's The Maltese Falcon, Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep, Tay Garnett's The Postman Always Rings Twice, Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity, John Farrow's The Big Clock, Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter, Otto Preminger's Laura, Nicholas Ray's In A Lonely Place, Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, Roman Polanski's Chinatown and Joel Cohen's Millar's Crossing.