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Listed in: English, as ENGL-95 | Film and Media Studies, as FAMS-72
Amelie E. Hastie (Section 06)
(Offered as ENGL 95-06 and FAMS 72.) As an upper-division seminar in television studies, this course will offer an in-depth examination of television textuality through the rubric of the crime and detective series. Focusing on the serial as one of the definitive forms of television, we will consider how the detective series utilizes that form to engage viewers in their own processes of investigation of television itself and of criminality. Grounding the course will be U.S. and British television series; we will look at entire seasons of almost all of the series we study in order to best understand serial form. Included in our exploration will be U.K. series Edge of Darkness, Prime Suspect, and Cracker and U.S. series The Sunday Night Mystery Movie, Hill Street Blues, The Wire, and Damages. We will also consider the U.K. series Life on Mars and its U.S. remake. Engaged in theoretical and interdisciplinary readings, throughout the course we will ask how might murder be a delivery platform for television and how is television a delivery system for murder. Two class meetings per week.
Prior coursework in Film and Media Studies is required, with prior coursework in Television Studies highly recommended. Limited to 15 students. Spring semester. Professor Hastie.
If Overenrolled: Preference given to senior and junior English majors.