{"id":116261,"date":"2016-09-29T09:08:27","date_gmt":"2016-09-29T13:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=116261"},"modified":"2023-06-27T13:09:40","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T17:09:40","slug":"coveted-class-sherlock-holmes-comparative-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2016\/09\/coveted-class-sherlock-holmes-comparative-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Coveted Class: Sherlock Holmes and Comparative Media"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

The Instructor<\/span><\/strong>
\nPamela Bedore, associate professor and writing coordinator, Avery Point campus. Bedore\u2019s courses \u2013 The Vampire in Literature and Culture and The Monster in Literature and Culture, known affectionately as \u201cVampire Lit\u201d and \u201cMonster Lit\u201d\u00a0\u2013 have been extremely popular with students. She\u2019s taught all manner of courses, including Stephen King and Cultural Theory; Gender Theory and Genre Fiction; American Detective Fiction; and Modern Canadian Literature (she grew up in Ontario); as well as undergrad staples, such as Freshman Writing; The Short Story; and Poetry.<\/p>\n

Class Description<\/span><\/strong>
\nSherlock Holmes and Comparative Media examines the phenomenon of Holmes both as a literary character in the canon of 60 stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and as an iconic figure appearing across multiple media, including print, graphic novel, film, and television.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question I want to get at,\u201d says Bedore, \u201cis why this character is such a persistent cultural icon. Why are there TV series and movies every year when this is an effete brainiac detective from 1887?<\/p>\n

\u201cWriters have been picking this character out and writing new stories around him almost from the beginning. Watson, too, of course. And Irene Adler \u2013 she only appears in one story. Moriarty? He only appears in two. Why do those characters get so much prominence in our culture? There are scion societies, who meet and do Holmes quizzes and presentations, all over the country. Why? I\u2019ll hold off on answers and let students ponder these questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Bedore\u2019s Teaching Style<\/span><\/strong>
\nStudents will \u201cacclimate,\u201d says Bedore, by reading 10 short stories and all four novels from Doyle\u2019s canon, which comprises 56 shorts and the novels. They\u2019ll also watch the current TV shows \u201cElementary\u201d and \u201cSherlock,\u201d and recent movies, such as \u201cSherlock Holmes,\u201d \u201cSherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,\u201d and \u201cMr. Holmes.\u201d<\/p>\n

By week four, students will have chosen an individual research topic about which they will write 500 to 1,000 words weekly. They will read one another\u2019s work in groups, while continuing to read from Doyle\u2019s canon and the \u201cfanon\u201d \u2013 stories by contemporary authors, starring Holmes and crew.<\/p>\n

All along, the students are asking those central questions of why the character has endured and what is his impact on popular culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut,\u201d says Bedore, and she may as well be rubbing her palms together, \u201cnow we get to the subquestions: Is pop lit subversive or conservative? Is it opium for the masses, or really challenging people to think about issues? What does this text do for us culturally? If you\u2019re a big fan of Sherlock Holmes, what does that mean to your own identity? And what do writers get out of it?\u201d<\/p>\n

When and Where<\/span><\/strong>
\nFall 2016 at UConn Avery Point campus<\/p>\n

Why We Want to Take It<\/span><\/strong>
\nBecause Bedore consumes knowledge like a vampire, sleuths out fun teaching techniques like a dime store detective, and is fiercely passionate, really funny, and consistently thought-provoking.<\/p>\n

Her ardor for her subjects is addictive, contagious. And it takes us to surprising places.<\/p>\n

When asked whether she might teach a class called Zombie Lit, she delivered a discourse in what seemed like one breath that began with the fact that her Monster Lit capstone includes zombie literature \u201cbecause it\u2019s fascinating,\u201d picked up speed when she mentioned how \u201cit\u2019s really easy to think of zombies as consumers,\u201d and ended in a mini lesson on this country\u2019s ongoing financial crisis and the statement, \u201cThat\u2019s why they\u2019re called zombie banks and vampire loans.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students in Professor Pam Bedore’s English class at Avery Point explore the enduring popularity of the fictional detective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":116263,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,173,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2027],"class_list":["post-116261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-uconn-avery-point","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-24 02:25:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116261"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117521,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116261\/revisions\/117521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/116263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116261"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=116261"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=116261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}