The Hierarchy of Detective Fiction: A Gramulator Analysis

Culture and authenticity: the discursive space of Japanese detective fiction and the formation of the national imaginary

In my thesis, I examine the discursive space of the detective fiction genre following Kasai Kiyoshi’s periodization in his two-volume seminal work Tantei shōsetsuron (The Theory of Detective Fiction, 1998). I investigate how Japanese detective fiction has developed in relation to Japan’s modernization, industrialization, nationalism, and globalization, specifically in the 1920s-30s, the 1950s-6...

Lewis on Meinongian Logic

In “Truth in Fiction,” David Lewis raises four objections to a Meinongian semantics of fiction. Lewis does not deny that a Meinongian logic of fiction could be made to work, but identifies disadvantages in Meinongian semantics as a reason for recommending his own possible worlds alternative. A Meinongian semantics proposes to explain meaning without ontological prejudice. It analyzes the meanin...

The Case of Mór Jókai and the Detective Story

While from the viewpoint of typology it is often stated that the genre of detective fiction originated with the work of Edgar Allan Poe, this statement can be challenged from the standpoint of literary or reception history. Several recent histories of detective fiction emphasize the importance of employing a wider generic view, yet they hardly expand their perspective beyond English literary tr...

Saussure and Sherlock, Derrida and the Detective: A Semiotic and Deconstructive Interpretation of the Classic Detective Fiction Genre

Nationality International: Detective Fiction in the Late Twentieth Century

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, crime fiction is a topranking literary genre, and has become part of mainstream culture. The crime novel’s position of pre-eminence derives from its broad fan base and its readership, with publishing houses devoting whole series and large print runs to the genre. Evidence of the prevalence of a popular obsession with crime stories is also to be foun...