The Aging Detective in 21st Century Fiction (NeMLA 2025)
Philadelphia, PA
Organization: Northeast Modern Language Association
Event: NeMLA 2025
Although some of the most iconic British fictional detectives—Marple, Poirot, and Holmes—are old-age pensioners, the 21st century is witnessing a proliferation of aging detectives in fiction, television, and film. Among recent novels are Jesse Q. Sutanto’s Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (2023), Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club series (2021-), and Robert Thorogood’s The Marlow Murder Club series (2021-), but it is a growing trend that cannot be accounted for simply by demographics.
This panel seeks to investigate what this shift means by raising questions: How do the detectives’ own aging processes affect their attitudes towards crime, criminals, death, dementia, murder? What role is played by gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and/or social class? Are there significant cultural differences among countries? To what extent are earlier stereotypes about older people challenged or reinforced?
Other possible ideas for submissions include (but are not limited to) comparing and contrasting the depiction of older fictional detectives past and present, tracing a theme through a series, or focusing on a literary character like Sherlock Holmes, whose old age has been re-imagined in Michael Chabon’s The Final Solution (2004), Mitch Cullin’s A Slight Trick of the Mind (2005), adapted as Mr. Holmes (film, 2015), and J.B. Varney’s Sherlock Holmes: The Aging Detective (2023).
Please submit an abstract (200-250 words) and a brief bio (<100 words) by September 30, 2024 through the NeMLA portal above (https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20977). Questions can be directed to Marla Harris at mhcrocombe@gmail.com. Thanks!
https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20977
Marla Harris