124267 AR Cultural/Media Studies 1/2 (AR) (2014W)

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the landscape of American television has decisively changed. The medium continues to be what Gary Edgerton has termed "a technology, an industry, an art form, and an institutional force"; (The Columbia History of American Television, 2007), but its formats and generic conventions have been profoundly transformed in recent years, especially so in the arena of serial drama. Whereas seriality had been part and parcel of television entertainment since the 1940s; from Days of Our Lives and Peyton Place to Desperate Housewives;the diversity of the global market, the development of DVD and BluRay technologies for home viewing, and the synergies of television and the Internet have resulted in more innovative formats. In this compact course, which will be combined with the participation in an international conference, we will explore several aspects of what has become known as "Quality TV"; and specifically engage with the analysis of representations of violence and crime in serials such as House of Cards, Breaking Bad, Dexter, The Wire, Fargo, and True Detective. What functions (politically, ideologically, ethically and aesthetically) does the depiction of transgressive behavior play? What does it mean for contemporary concepts of American citizenship?