Dialogue Scaffoldings

While this third chapter begins by focusing on the same early pioneers, it veers from inanimate descriptions to constructions of character. That is, Hammett conceived his private investigator as fundamentally figurative, the culmination of a flamboyant style expressed more or less entirely through dialogue, with the flaunting of a cool, flip, smart-assed affect. Subsequent fictional detectives likewise gain our attention by being reduced to stick-figure sketches, little more than quirky gestures and colorful banter. In contrast to other genres, where language tends to realistic transparency while character proves more substantial, detective fiction banks on the impeccable thinness of words deftly turned. Chandler grasped the implications of such seemingly superfluous configurations, with arch similes built on Hammett’s tersely sober expressions. Ever since, genre authors have embellished an ideal of self-conscious “attitude,” celebrating in the process a wry immunity to conventional civic and moral discriminations.

„Türke von Geburt“ und „Staatsbürger der Bundesrepublik“ Überlegungen zum irregulären Lebenslauf von Jakob Arjounis Privatermittler Kemal Kayankaya

With his first crime novel Happy birthday, Turk! (1985) Jakob Arjouni established a private investigator with a migration background, but whose lifestyle does not differ from that of the indigenous population. The aim of my contribution is to use statements by Jakob Arjouni himself, as well as a collage of the biographical data on Kemal Kayankaya scattered throughout the five crime novels, to show that while the serial hero has developed a bicultural self-confidence, often stylized as a metaphor of his cultural hybridity, more importantly he takes a post-integrative perspective, resulting from his gradual assimilation into German culture and society which began in his childhood and was completed in the course of his adolescence.

Out of obscurity: The contemporary private investigator in Australia

The business of private investigation has grown significantly in the past two decades. No longer can private investigating be considered an obscure form of private policing. Yet, despite the recent growth of interest in private policing, little research has been conducted on the services provided by private investigators. This article presents the results of an analysis of 33 in-depth interviews with Australian private investigators in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. The article discusses their contemporary role in the context of providing justice, public policing and future regulatory challenges. The article extends the limited research on the services private investigators provide, including corporate fraud and financial investigations, risk advisory, and cyber and misconduct investigations. It identifies their backgrounds and education, and describes their clients. The study found that, contrary to expectations, to meet these new services, private investigators are now highly qualified academically and professionally. It was found that regulatory gaps have been created in the licensing of contemporary private investigators, and the use of private investigators allows clients to sidestep the justice system.

Man In A Hat: Martin Balsam And The Refining Of Male Character Acting In American Films, 1957-1976

This article attempts a definition at what constitutes “character acting” in mainstream cinema in the United States and argues that throughout the peak of his film career—roughly, 1957 through 1976--Martin Balsam refined the definition of male character acting in American film, a parameter previously established by such skilled practitioners as Eugene Pallette and Claude Rains. Balsam did this through his ability to portray what can be termed “a man in a hat” portrayals: tartly humorous, reliable, and sometimes authoritative supporting characters, usually wearing a chapeau. This is clearly seen in such performances as the private investigator in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and most interestingly, a partner in an unusual subway hijacking in Joseph Sargent’s The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three (1974).

The Working Class PI (AKA Jessica Jones)

This chapter initially discusses the literary origins of Jessica Jones, the superheroine introduced in Alias by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos. In the comic book series, Jones is a blue-collar hero clearly tied to hard-boiled detective fiction: a genre about and for a working class audience. This chapter then presents the way Bendis and Gaydos use Jones’ identity as a private investigator to subvert traditional superhero stories that are written with little concerns for class. In addition, Alias uses Jones’ identity as a woman to subvert the male bias of both traditional superhero stories and hard-boiled detective fiction.The resultant mix creates a meandering path for Jones: a woman’s narrative of “quiet desperation” that is largely lost in purposeful arc of its Netflix adaptation, Jessica Jones.

“I just want to feel something different”

The last several decades have witnessed the publication of many revisionist and self-critical superhero comics, yet the most critically discussed of these focus on the straight white male characters who have always dominated the genre. In contrast, the ongoing series Alias (2001–4) stars Jessica Jones, a superhero turned private investigator who is empowered by a radioactive accident yet disempowered by her gender within a male-dominated superhero community that both excludes women and actively abuses them. This article argues that Alias redresses the superhero genre's marginalization and victimization of female characters by emphasizing Jessica's complex subjectivity and implicating male superheroes in her multifaceted abuse. It also considers Jessica's translation into more traditional comics series, wherein she becomes sidelined as a wife and stay-at-home mother; these series prove the difficulty of maintaining progressive politics within genres where the visual and narrative conventions are so steeped in gender stereotypes.

Activities and Strategies for the Inclusion of a K-12 Educational Component in Digitization Grant Projects of Academic Libraries

This article seeks to explore and discuss activities and strategies for including a K-12 educational component in digitization grant projects in academic libraries. The article is based on cases studying the K-12 educational component of the three following grants awarded to East Carolina University Joyner Library by North Carolina Exploring Cultural Heritage Online (NC ECHO) grant program: Digitizing Eastern North Carolina History, Fiction and Artifacts: The Eastern North Carolina Digital Library (http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/historyfiction/), Seeds of Change: The Daily Reflector Image Collection (http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/reflector/), and Ensuring Democracy Through Digital Access: North Carolina Government Publications Collection (beta testing). Planning, budgeting, implementation, promotion and lessons learned are discussed offering first-hand experiences in effective methods to integrate activities and strategies into digitization projects providing access to useful resources for all users with a focus on K-12 educators and students. The author‘s interest in this topic is based on cumulative experiences of involvement in the listed digitization grant projects as a private investigator and as an educational consultant of the above grants. Lessons learned are highlighted providing readers with specific, valuable details for consideration to improve future digitization projects.