Nov 16, 2018
In the spring, I am teaching a class on the cultural legacy of Sherlock Holmes and plan to have students use digital tools and methods in their work with all things Holmesian. I plan to have students create a bi-monthly podcast to work through and present what they’re learning.
The course will focus on the cultural values of the Victorian period and the original Sherlock Holmes canon, but it will also explore the longevity and pervasiveness of the character invented by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As a necessary part of that legacy, we will spend time theorizing adaptations, fan cultures, detective fiction and our current fascination with crime shows.
This part of the course content will be a good fit for the podcasting, which dovetails well with fan cultures by offering users a platform for discussion and exploration. Learning doesn’t take place in a vacuum, so it makes sense that we help each other arrive at understanding through discourse.
That’s one thing that Sherlock Holmes himself thrived on: even with his brains, he wasn’t ever a solitary figure in his search for knowledge and answers. As Moriarty complains in the BBC’s Sherlock’s “The Abominable Bride,” Holmes always utilizes the help of his friends or colleagues to solve the case.
