To be CDM 155

Epic Television: The Golden Age of TV?

Recent years have been hailed as a “golden age of television” and drawn talent from other corners of the media industry to an unprecedented degree. Television has long been the key electronic medium for politics and collective identity, but, increasingly television dominates prestige culture and arts as well. This class explores the various transformations that underpin this new age, especially the technological, economic, and cultural transition from broadcast to subscription and now digital television. Other themes include: class; ethnicity; race; violence; police ethics and brutality; gender; sexuality; US politics and identity, including the degradation of the US city; geopolitics of the world beyond US borders; representation of history and collective/prosthetic memory (and the dangers of a “heritage” industry); the horror genre and the apparent irresistibility of the zombie genre. Series addressed include: Sorpanos, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Homeland, the Walking Dead.