Columbo

A Rhetoric of Inquiry with Resistant Responders

Christyne Berzsenyi (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

224 Seiten

2021
Intellect Books (Verlag)
978-1-78320-985-9 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

An analysis of the hit television series Columbo specifically looking at the famous detective’s investigative method of rhetorical enquiry. Through a barrage of questions about tiny details and by feigning ignorance, Columbo employs Socratic method of questioning based on temperance and restraint to discover truths from guest star murderers.

This book presents an analysis of Lieutenant Columbo's investigative method of rhetorical inquiry as seen in the television police procedural Columbo (1968-2003). With a barrage of questions about minute details and feigned ignorance, the iconic detective enacts a persona of ‘antipotency’ (counter authoritativeness) to affect the villains' underestimation of his attention to inconsistencies, abductive reasoning, and rhetorical efficacy. In a predominantly dialogue-based investigation, Columbo exhausts his suspects by asking a battery of questions concerning all minor details of the case, which evolves into an aggravating tedious provocation for the killer trying to maintain innocence. Based on the Ancient Greek ideal of Sophrosyne (temperance, restraint) and the Socratic method of questioning to discover truths, the Lieutenant models effective rhetorical inquiry with resistant responders: shy, secretive, anxious, emotionally-disconnected, angry, arrogant, jealous, and, in this case, murderous conversants. While designed to be critical and theoretical, this text strives to be accessible to interdisciplinary readers, practical in application, and amusing for Columbo buffs.

Christyne Berzsenyi is associate professor of English at Penn State Wilkes-Barre.

PART ONE: UNDERSTANDING THE LIEUTENANT AND HIS VILLAINS

Introduction: Introduction to Columbo And Columbo

Columbo, An Inverted Mystery
A Snapshot of Television and Film History: Pre-Columbo
The Underestimated Detective (1910)
Scholarship and the Lieutenant
Historical, Literary, and Television Contexts: Shift to Grit and Realism

Columbo and the Lieutenant: Literary Influences

The Firsts in Short and Long Detective Fiction in English (1841-62)
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Lieutenant Porfiry Petrovitch: Pretenses (1886)
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes: Genius Detective (1887)
British Golden Age, Drawing Room Mysteries, The Cozy (1920-40)

Characterology and Character-Based Detective TV Shows

The Lieutenant with His Sergeants
Columbo: A Blend of Genres, Influences, and Deviations

Columbo, The Suspect Charmer

Suspects as Resistant Responders
Charming the Stinging Villains

Glamour in Columbo

Two Sides of Columbo Presented on a Case by Case Basis

Columbo Talks to 'Dog', 'Étude in Black' (1972)
Columbo and a Resistant Responder, 'Double Shock' (1973)
Dual Personae, 'An Exercise in Fatality' (1974)

Columbo and the Ancient Greek Virtue of Sophrosyne
Looking for the Right Word: Antipotency

The Columbo Killer

White, middle-aged, wealthy, intelligent, cultured, successful, arrogant
Audience-Villain Relationships and Columbo
Columbo’s Five Types of Villains

Columbo, Women of His Investigations, and the Equal Rights Movement

The Women’s Professional Movement Strategic Male Chauvinism
Columbo’s Female Villains: Ladylike but Lethal
Columbo and the Female Accomplices
Columbo and the Female Witnesses

PART TWO: COLUMBO’S METHOD OF INVESTIGATION

Crime Scene Examination and Ratiocination

What Viewers Know and Don’t Know about What Columbo Knows

The Working Cop’s Habit of Asking Questions: A Rhetoric of Inquiry

Power of Asking Different Types of Questions
The Socratic Method of Dialectic, aporia, and Standard Elenchus
Techniques of Columbo’s Rhetorical Inquiry
Fake Questions Types with Multiple Functions
Probing Questions Types with Multiple Functions

Killing Them Softly: Irritating the Suspects in Seven Modes

Obligating the Suspect with Appeasement Pressure and the Extrication of Any Threat
False modesty, Excessive flattery
Repeated, Disingenuous Apologies
Wasting the Suspect’s Time
Circumstantial Speech and Inane Storytelling
False Exits, 'Oh, I almost forgot'
False Exits, 'Just one more thing'
Special Cases of Direct Confrontation: Columbo Gets Mad

Columbo Closes the Case: Capture and Consequences

Lieutenant Columbo: Virtuous or Villainous?
Columbo: The Denouement
PART THREE: COLUMBO’S LEGACY IN POPULAR CULTURE AND ACADEMIA

Television Detectives Influenced by Lieutenant Columbo

Spoofing the Lieutenant

Using Columbo’s Method in Our Everyday Lives
'Just One More Thing': Columbo and Spectatorship

Erscheinungsdatum	10.05.2021
Zusatzinfo	30 Halftones, black and white
Sprache	englisch
Maße	170 x 244 mm
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
ISBN-10	1-78320-985-2 / 1783209852
ISBN-13	978-1-78320-985-9 / 9781783209859
Zustand	Neuware