
Traces, Codes, and Clues
Reading Race in Crime Fiction
Maureen T. Reddy(Author)
Rutgers University Press
Will be published approx. on 29. October 2002
Book
Paperback/Softback
214 pages
978-0-8135-3202-8 (ISBN)
Description
Detective fiction featuring white women and people of color such as Barbara Neelys Blanche White and Walter Mosleys Easy Rawlinshas become tremendously popular. Although they are considered "light reading," mysteries also hold important cultural and social "clues." Much recent scholarly work has demonstrated that race is both a cultural fiction not a biological reality and a central organizing principle of experience. Popular writers are likely to reflect the conventions of their own historical situations.
In Traces, Codes, and Clues: Reading Race in Crime Fiction, Maureen T. Reddy explores the ways in which crime fiction manipulates cultural constructions such as race and gender to inscribe dominant cultural discourses. She notes that even those writers who appear to set out to revise outdated conventions repeatedly reproduce the genres most conservative elements. The greatest obstacle to transforming crime fiction, Reddy states, is the fact that the genre itself is deeply embedded in the discourse of white (and male) superiority. There is, therefore, an absolute necessity to break away from that discourse through reversal or other strategies in order to produce work that defies, and thus helps readers to defy, the dominant ideology of race.
In Traces, Codes, and Clues: Reading Race in Crime Fiction, Maureen T. Reddy explores the ways in which crime fiction manipulates cultural constructions such as race and gender to inscribe dominant cultural discourses. She notes that even those writers who appear to set out to revise outdated conventions repeatedly reproduce the genres most conservative elements. The greatest obstacle to transforming crime fiction, Reddy states, is the fact that the genre itself is deeply embedded in the discourse of white (and male) superiority. There is, therefore, an absolute necessity to break away from that discourse through reversal or other strategies in order to produce work that defies, and thus helps readers to defy, the dominant ideology of race.
Reviews / Votes
Among the first scholarly texts to concentrate on race and detective fiction, Reddy's book is a welcome addition to the field. Traces, Codes, and Clues sheds light on a vast array of novels, and is rendered in an easily accessible style that will appeal to specialists and general readers alike. - Priscilla L. Walton, coauthor of Detective Agency: Women Rewriting the Hard-Boiled TraditionMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New Brunswick NJ
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Weight
312 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8135-3202-8 (9780813532028)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Maureen T. Reddy is a professor of English and womens studies at Rhode Island College. Her other books include Crossing the Color Line: Race, Parenting, and Culture, and the edited collections Everyday Acts Against Racism and Race in the College Classroom: Pedagogy and Politics.
Content
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Cracking Codes
Countering Tradition
Tracing Whiteness
White Readings of Race
Writing the Other
Conclusion
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
Introduction
Cracking Codes
Countering Tradition
Tracing Whiteness
White Readings of Race
Writing the Other
Conclusion
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index