Welcome to SPACE, our adult continuing education program which offers interactive monthly courses for personal enrichment! Learn more here.
Being Scheduled
Mixed Lecture/Discussion
Days and Times
As soon as we obtain enough interest in this class we will be in touch to work out a meeting time that works for the group. Thank you for keeping your December 2026 availability up to date!
This class needs more pre-enrollment by November 1 to get confirmed.
This module is a standing candidate which means it will be ready to launch as soon as it gets enough interest. Token holders can set aside a Token to reserve their seat for class and help it get confirmed.
Master of the macabre Edgar Allan Poe made many great contributions to literature, and one of the most enduring was the creation of his great detective, C. Auguste Dupin. Combining reason and imagination to use ratiocination for solving baffling mysteries, Dupin anticipated detective fiction and revolutionized crime fiction, paving the way for Sherlock Holmes and many other iconic characters who followed.
Poe drew on the Gothic storytelling tradition and on real-life, true-crime cases to create his complex and fascinating mysteries. In this module, we will investigate his three interconnected Dupin stories—"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" (1842), and "The Purloined Letter" (1844)—to appreciate the inspirations behind, innovations in, and legacies of Poe’s pioneering tales.
The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:
Poe drew on the Gothic storytelling tradition and on real-life, true-crime cases to create his complex and fascinating mysteries. In this module, we will investigate his three interconnected Dupin stories—"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" (1842), and "The Purloined Letter" (1844)—to appreciate the inspirations behind, innovations in, and legacies of Poe’s pioneering tales.
The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:
| Outline | 8-Session Structure |
|---|---|
| Week 1 | Lecture 1: "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" |
| Discussion 1: Lecture 1 Discussion | |
| Week 2 | Lecture 2: "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" |
| Discussion 2 Lecture 2 Discussion | |
| Week 3 | Lecture 3: "The Purloined Letter" |
| Discussion 3: Lecture 3 Discussion | |
| Week 4 | Lecture 4: The Significance of the Dupin Stories |
| Discussion 4 Lecture 4 Discussion |
Required Texts
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" (1842), and "The Purloined Letter" (1844) in any format. The stories are available online and in hardcopy, ebook, and audiobook formats.
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