The Wire: Race, Class, and Genre

by Liam Kennedy (Editor), Stephen Shapiro (Editor)

Few other television series have received as much academic, media, and fan celebration as The Wire, which has been called the best dramatic series ever created. The show depicts the conflict between Baltimore's police and criminals to raise a warning about race; drug war policing; de-industrialization; and the inadequacies of America's civic, educational, and political institutions. The show's unflinching explorations of a city in crisis and its nuanced portrayals of those affected make it a show all about race and class in America. The essays in this volume offer a range of astute critical responses to this television phenomenon. More consistently than any other crime show of its generation, The Wire challenges viewers' perceptions of the racialization of urban space and the media conventions that support this. The Wire reminds us of just how remarkably restricted the grammar of race is on American television and related media, and of the normative codings of race---as identity, as landscape---across urban narratives, from documentary to entertainment media.

312 pages, Paperback

First published July 28, 2012

About the author

Professor Liam Kennedy is Director of the Clinton Institute for American Studies at University College Dublin. He has diverse research interests and teaching experiences, spanning the fields of American urban studies, visual culture, globalisation and transatlantic relations.

He is the author of Susan Sontag: Mind as Passion (1995) and Race and Urban Space in American Culture (2000). He is co-editor of Urban Space and Representation (1999) and City Sites: An Electronic Book (2000), and editor of Remaking Birmingham: The Visual Culture of Urban Regeneration (2004).

Professor Kennedy's work is interdisciplinary, blending cultural and political modes of scholarly analysis, and represents American Studies as a valuable framework to study both American domestic and international affairs.

He is currently researching a monograph on photography and international conflict, and preparing two edited books - on urban photography and on cultural diplomacy and US foreign policy.

Reviews

[HadiDee · Rating 2 out of 5]

A variable and overly academic collection of essays and analysis on my favorite TV show. Can't honestly say I'd recommend it to anyone except diehard Wire fans. A generous 2 stars.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are a fan of the series or a TV scholar wanting to see the breadth of thinking on one of America's most important television series then this collection of essays should serve you well. Jason Mittell, Frank Kelleter, Marsha Kinder, Paul Allen Anderson, and Carlo Rotella's essays are the standouts in this collection.