Please join us for a CuSPP Seminar in person BPBW3.03 and online on Thursday 1 Oct from 1-2. Please refer to the CuSPP email or email Wesley.Lim@anu.edu.au for the link.
Abstract
Building on previous work on Corsican crime fiction, this presentation frames the island as a pivotal object of inquiry, arguing that isolation, resource constraints and cultural diversity dynamically shape crime narratives. The aim is also to extend these insights, proposing that similar dynamics exist in multilingual narratives from non-Anglocentric regions such as the Mediterranean, Central America and Asia. Adopting a cross-disciplinary approach, this paper merges literary analysis with cultural geography and transnational studies to broaden the scope of crime fiction. It explores how islands influence our understanding of crime, place and identity, challenging conventional literary paradigms. This presentation calls for crime fiction scholars, particularly those focused on island narratives in languages other than English, to join a collaborative effort aimed at deepening narrative strategies across diverse geographies. By laying theoretical groundwork, it seeks to foster a network of scholars to expand the study of island-based crime fiction’s dynamics and its literary impact.
Bio
Clara Sitbon is a Senior Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies at The University of Sydney and a literary comparatist specialising in multi-authorship (pseudonyms, heteronyms, pseudo-translators and other pen names) and in French and Francophone crime fiction. Her first monograph (Boris Vian, faiseur de hoax: pour une démystification de l’Affaire Vernon Sullivan, Brill, 2019) offers the first comprehensive, poststructuralist theory of literary hoaxes across French, British, and Australian literatures. In 2017, she co-authored Origins and Legacies of Marcel Duhamel’s Série Noire (Brill), cementing her expertise in French crime fiction. As part of her Nancy Keesing AM Fellowship with the State Library of New South Wales, she is mapping the works of Australian pulp writer Carter Brown to examine the transnational legacy of Australian pulp fiction. Concurrently, she is also working on regional French crime narratives (particularly Corsican) as a transnational tool for rethinking the genre’s conventional paradigms. Her second monograph, Corsican Crime Fiction: A Shifting Landscape, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press at the end of October.
