On The Wire
1st Edition
Published on 8. August 2014
280 pages
978-0-8223-7644-6 (ISBN)
Description
In this sophisticated examination of the HBO serial drama that aired from 2002 until 2008, Linda Williams, a leading film scholar and authority on the interplay between film, melodrama, and issues of race, suggests what exactly it is that makes The Wire so good. She argues that its narrative power derives from its genre, popular melodrama.
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Linda Williams
On the Wire
Book
08/2014
Duke University Press
€109.50
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Person
Linda Williams is Professor of Film Studies and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. Her books include Screening Sex and Porn Studies, both also published by Duke University Press; Playing the Race Card: Melodramas of Black and White from Uncle Tom to O. J. Simpson; Viewing Positions: Ways of Seeing Film; and Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible." In 2013, Williams received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.
Content
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Part I. World Enough and Time: The Genesis and Genius of The Wire
1. Ethnographic Imagination: From Journalism to Television Serial 11
2. Serial Television's World and Time: The Importance of the "Part" 37
Part II. Justice in The Wire: Tragedy, Realism, and Melodrama
3. "Classical" Tragedy, or. 79
4. Realistic, Modern Serial Melodrama 107
Part III. Surveillance, Schoolin', and Race
5. Hard Eyes / Soft Eyes: Surveillance and Schoolin' 139
6. Feeling Race: The Wire and the American Melodrama of Black and White 173
Conclusion: Home Sweet Baltimore 211
Notes 223
Bibliography 247
Index 255
Introduction 1
Part I. World Enough and Time: The Genesis and Genius of The Wire
1. Ethnographic Imagination: From Journalism to Television Serial 11
2. Serial Television's World and Time: The Importance of the "Part" 37
Part II. Justice in The Wire: Tragedy, Realism, and Melodrama
3. "Classical" Tragedy, or. 79
4. Realistic, Modern Serial Melodrama 107
Part III. Surveillance, Schoolin', and Race
5. Hard Eyes / Soft Eyes: Surveillance and Schoolin' 139
6. Feeling Race: The Wire and the American Melodrama of Black and White 173
Conclusion: Home Sweet Baltimore 211
Notes 223
Bibliography 247
Index 255
