Crime at Columbia

I just got an invitation for a panel discussion at Columbia called "Pulp Fiction: Hard Case Crime, Hard-Boiled Sentimentality, and the New Wave of Crime Writers."  It's on March 25, and one of the panelists is George Stade, whose class on popular fiction I took many many years ago.  I'm really more of an English-country-house-murder-mystery kind of person than a hard-boiled- detective-story person, but I think I'll try to go anyway to see Professor Stade (not that he would remember me).  I'm not sure if it's open to the public; I'll try to find out.  I think it's actually more of a development event, since the RSVP e-mail is the graduate school annual fund!  Maybe I'll promise to put them in my will.