How do they, as gendered and raced agents of the law, resist and negotiate the law’s construction of gender and race?

You will write an 8-10 page paper that makes an argument about any text we have read this semester. (If you choose to expand your midterm paper, the length requirement will be slightly longer. We’ll talk about this in class). This is your chance to put your ideas in conversation with the ideas of scholars/readers who have analyzed these texts before you. A minimum of 5 scholarly, peer-reviewed sources are required. Your paper should answer, at least in part, one or more of the following course questions:
Course Questions:
How do women authors write male detectives? How do they write women detectives?
What kinds of violations do female detectives stumble upon, and where does the site of interrogation lie? What spaces for justice do they open up? What notions of justice do they enforce and restore? What alternatives do they envision?
How do female detectives navigate the tensions they are subjected to as female professionals in male-dominated institutions? Do they enact or subvert the detective agency that they are granted? How do they, as gendered and raced agents of the law, resist and negotiate the law’s construction of gender and race?
What is knowledge to the female detective? How do female detectives find and analyze clues? What strategies do they employ to solve their cases?
What is the role of the reader of detective fiction? How are readers of detective fiction called to do their own investigative work? How does the subjectivity of the reader matter to their experience with the text?
How does first, second, third, and fourth wave feminist thought/goals affect the characterization of the female detectives we’re studying? How do female detectives evolve and/or remain the same throughout these political/social movements?
Use these questions as a guide. You may alter them/shorten them/lengthen them to suit the focus you want to take for your paper.