States of Crime: The State in CrimeFiction
17th-18th ofJune 2011, Queen's University, Belfast.
Keynote Speaker:Professor Dominique Kalifa, Université Paris 1 Panthéon - Sorbonne
Guest Writers: Eoin McNamee, David Peace
Thisconference examines crime fiction through the various manifestations of itsrelations to the State. State institutions are unlike other protagonists incriminal affairs, due to their monopoly of legitimate violence and havehitherto received comparatively little attention in literary criticism. Yet,shadows of the state apparatus loom large over crime fiction, both within thenarration and as a referential background. The emergence of the detective novelmirrors historically the advent of the modern police state. It reflects thecreation of an organised network of surveillance and control. Poe's 'ThePurloined Letter' conceals a State affair. The genre has often been shown todisplay securitarian tendencies. The detective, either himself an agent of theState or a “private eye” objectively fulfilling the role of an auxiliary ofjustice, classically pursues not only the punishment of deviant individuals,but the restoration of order. At the same time, distinctions between exponentsof State order and criminals have been blurred since the origins and the figureof Vidocq. In a similar fashion to Hugo's couple Valjean/Javert andDostoievsky's Raskolnikov/ Porfiri Petrovitch, crime readers' sympathies have oftenveered towards the criminal rather than the State. Evolutions within the genre,in the wake of WWI, the Russian revolution and the American Great Depression,have introduced a more explicit critique of State corruption, and of thesurrender of public bodies to private interests, lobbies, and organised crime. PostWWII, the “Noir” has accrued its counter cultural credentials with a critiqueof State oppression, cultural domination, silencing of minorities, and racialand sexist discrimination.
Muchcontemporary crime fiction continues to buttress the authority of the State butat the same time an increased political radicalisation of the genre hasdeveloped worldwide in the context of decolonisation and the Vietnam War. Marxist,Anarchist and Post-Situationist crime fiction authors have explored the genre'ssubversive potential, while experiencing its constraints and contradictions. Ascrime fiction's geo-politics reach has expanded, the generic boundariesseparating crime, thriller and espionage fiction have been called intoquestion, along with the State's ability to control its territorial borders andthe distinction between domestic and international securitization.
Oneof the aims of this conference is to compare different international approachesto the State in Crime Fiction within their various historical, national andpolitical contexts. To what extent do different state traditions (i.e.Scandinavia, Italy, the US, the German Democratic Republic) find an echo incrime literature and films produced in their respective area? To what extent dothese different state traditions produce distinctive crime fictions? What arethe various purposes served in representing the State, and how much do theydiffer in a federal State, a decentralised State, or a popular democracy? In aone-party state, a Republic and a constitutional monarchy ? Do culturaltransfers in the genre reflect such differences? How far is crime fiction - agenre that has developed in consort with the consolidation of the modern State- able to challenge political domination, debunk the ideologies of publicdiscourses, uncover State secrets and revisit official history?
Weinvite papers in English which discuss, from a range of disciplines all aspectsof such questions or deal with some of the following points (the list is by nomeans exhaustive), in any given literature and country, or in internationalcomparison:
* Crimefiction and Democracy
* Stateculture and literary traditions
* TheState and civil society: neutral umpire or capitalist vehicle?
* Publicvs private: the State as gendered domain?
* Racismand antiracism
* Securingthe city: race, ethnicity, class and the police
* Police procedurals and the police
* Statecrimes and State affairs
* Stateresponsibility in war crimes, crimes against Humanity, and Genocide
* Antiterrorism and State terror/coercion
* Decolonization and postcolonial crime fiction
* Hobbes,Marx, Weber, Foucault, and Deleuze… Influence of theory on crime fiction.
* ThePoliticization of crime fiction
* Progressivism and Revolution
* Anarchism, leftism and reactionary politics
* Marxist and Situationist crime fiction: acontradiction ?
* TheNoir as “committed” literature : roman noir and engagement
* Public utilities and general interest
* Theshrinking State: privatisation and the end of the welfare State
* Dismantlement of the social state and the riseof corporate interests
* CrimeFiction in the age of advanced financial capitalism
* Private security agencies and non-electedpublic authorities
* Infra-State entities and regional crimefiction
* “Public Choice Theories”, “New PublicManagement” and “new” forms of governance
* TheEuropeanization of the police. Europol, trans-border police cooperation andcrime fiction
* Globalisation and the State.
* Thedetective novel in popular democracies
N.B. Papers should be no more than twenty minutes in length.
Conferenceorganisers: Dr. Dominique Jeannerod, French Studies, QUB, and Dr. AndrewPepper, English Studies, QUB.
Pleasesend 300-word abstracts of papers to statesofcrime2011@gmail.com by 31st January 2011.
Apublication of proceedings from the conference is planned.