Acting by Accident in Literature and Film

3 Credits.

When is an action just an accident--and when should it be called intentional? What about a double murder that is planned to look accidental ... but goes very wrong in practice? And who is responsible in these situations? This course explores these and other fascinating stories of planned actions, accidents, and unintended consequences. Reading and watching twentieth-century literature and movies, we will follow a range of different creators as they think about what an intentional action is and is not, and how accidents impact how we understand our world. What can these works tell us about how we intend, act, or make meaning at the limits of our control? Texts will include films by Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Justine Triet, and fiction by Kate Chopin, Flannery O’Connor, Richard Wright, James Cain, and Patricia Highsmith.