Sherlock Holmes, "The Woman," and Detective Fiction (Lectures + Performance)

Lectures: Friday, February 2 and 9, 12:30–2 p.m. |KF Room/Harrison Libraries/Harry Jack Gray Center Performance with Talk Back: Sunday, February 4, 2 p.m. |Playhouse on Park, 244 Park Road, West Hartford Lectures + Performance: $80 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891) opens with the wonderful line: “To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman.” Irene Adler is the woman who intrigues, entices, and ultimately bests Sherlock Holmes. As such, she appears in many adaptations of Holmes stories—sometimes as a femme fatale, sometimes as Sherlock’s lover (and even the mother of his child!), and sometimes as another detective. In our first session, we’ll discuss the mysterious Irene Adler; how representative is she of women in Sherlock Holmes stories and adaptations, and in detective fiction as a whole? In our second session, gather to debate Kate Hamill’s feminist take on the Sherlock tradition: her play, Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson—Apt 2B. What do you make of her re-interpretation of the legendary Sherlock Holmes and John Watson – a sleuthing duo so beloved that they have been the subject of countless TV and film adaptations and fan fictions? How does Hamill rewrite detective fiction conventions? How does her play enter into conversations about gender roles and the construction of gender more broadly? PAMELA BEDORE is associate professor of English at the University of Connecticut, where she teaches courses on detective fiction, science fiction, gender theory, and American Literature. She is also the book review editor of Clues: A Journal of Detection and author of Dime Novels and the Roots of Detective Fiction and Great Works of Utopian and Dystopian Literature. Her new book, Canadian Crime Fiction, comes out in February 2024. Her Great Course, “Great Utopian and Dystopian Works of Literature,” is available on audible or at your public library.