The conference is co–organized by Dr Dominique Jeannerod and Dr Natacha Levet (University of Limoges) and will be held in collaboration with the LPCM association of researchers in popular cultures (http://www.flsh.unilim.fr/lpcm/) and with the financial support of the University of Limoges. Tackling the current success of ‘regional crime novels’, it will consider the dialectic relationship between local settings and law enforcement units on the one hand and markets and crime globalisation on the other. How can the apparently ‘universal’ conventions of the genre allow crime writers to explore the peculiarity of their own geographical, historical and cultural background, and the specificity of national, and often peripheral, areas? How has this evolution reconfigured the traditional characteristics of the crime genre? How was globalisation seen from this perspective? How have these representations of the local been received respectively by local and foreign readers? How have audiovisual media contributed to, and influenced, the circulation of this production? Has the process highlighted the critical political and cultural potential of the crime genre, or on the contrary watered it down as a form of tourism (regional crime fictions as guidebooks)? Similarly, have their activation in Crime fiction revitalised regional identities or merely petrified them as ‘museified’ entities, or merchandised them as commoditized stereotypes?
These and more research questions will be addressed and should lead to discussions and collaborations. Postgraduate participation in all the Research group events is encouraged.
Conference programme here
VIDEO RECORDINGS OF VARIOUS TALKS RELATED TO THIS CONFERENCE ARE AVAILBALE IN THE ‘RESOURCES’ SECTION:
Eoin McNamee’s and Brian McGilloway’s reading and interview
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
International Crime Fiction Research Group 