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Popular Culture Review
dally the kind that these scholars engage in. They are often enlisted to investigate
and interpret a scholar victim’s latest research, work that may provide clues to the
solution of the mystery. Or they may venture into independent detecting, as se
cretly as possible, in order to avoid the charge of interference from police, as well
as suspicion from colleagues and superiors (detective work rarely enhances one’s
chances for tenure!). Such independent detecting may be due, in part, to personal
and professional curiosity, in part to chance (Sarah Deane, Karen Pelletier and
others seem to have a knack for stumbling over dead bodies or being the confi
dantes of students who become victims or suspects). Often they become involved
for the purpose of self-defense or self-protection (they are suspects for a while, or
possible next victims), or due to a sense of obligation or conviction: helping a
friend, colleague, or student, or fighting for a political or professional cause they
believe in (ranging from Elizabeth Austin’s obsession with plagiarism to concerns
about old boys’ networks or sexual harassment). In other words, the female scholar’s
decision to become a detective can be both self- and community related, but is
usually a combination of both.
These professors’ commitment to and involvement in community can also be
seen in other ways. First, their detective work is rarely a loner’s enterprise: not only
do these women “have a life” and therefore limited time to devote to detection; they
also tend to help the police or enlist the support of colleagues, friends and family,
even that of ex-lovers or ex-husbands. Nor do they generally aim to solve a mystery
single-handedly; what’s important is that the mystery gets solved, often to make
academic or neighborhood communities safer places, or, if necessary, to change
them. Frequently, these women are also committed to other communities or con
stituencies - such as communities of women, their students and colleagues, and
friend and family circles; sometimes political communities, such as the women’s
movement or, in Nikki Chase’s case, the African American community.
To examine these double commitments to individualism and community in
more detail, let’s begin with these sleuths’ individualistic personalities, and the
ways these enter into their private, professional, and detective lives (always keep
ing in mind that the separation between personal and professional, individual and
community is somewhat artificial - in fact, these novels question this traditional
opposition). Nonetheless, our female academics have their idiosyncrasies, like to
spend time by themselves and live independently, and often go against the norm,
sometimes even the law, or simply against institutional rules and regulations (while
at the same time also fighting for law and justice). They are courageous and some
times stubborn, heeding their own advice more often than that of others. Men are
sometimes obstacles for them, both &