Monday nights meet in AXN 100; T/Th screen in AXN 232, discuss in AXN 109
All readings should be completed by Monday each week
Feb 10: Course Intro
WATCH: #1 “The Target” & #2 “The Detail”
Feb 12: Context: Television
WATCH: #3 “The Buys”
READ: David Simon, “Letter to HBO”
Feb 13: special screening at 1:30, AXN 232
WATCH: #4 “Old Cases” & #5 “The Pager”
Feb 16:
WATCH: #6 “The Wire” & #7 “One Arrest”
READ: Richard Price, Clockers, parts 1 & 2 (through p. 292)
Feb 17: The Wire as Crime Fiction
WATCH: #8 “Lessons”
Feb 19:
WATCH: #9 “Game Day” & #10 “The Cost”
Feb 23:
WATCH: #11 “The Hunt” & #12 “Cleaning Up”
READ: Richard Price, Clockers, finish book
Feb 24:
WATCH: #13 “Sentencing” (end season 1)
Feb 26: Context: Baltimore
WATCH: #14 “Ebb Tide” & #15 “Collateral Damage”
Mar 2:
WATCH: #16 “Hot Shots” & #17 “Hard Cases”
READ: Philippe Bourgois, In Search of Respect, Intro – Ch. 4 (to p. 173)
Mar 3:
WATCH: #18 “Undertow” & #19 “All Prologue”
Mar 5: Context: Post-Industrial America
WATCH: #20 “Backwash”
Mar 9:
WATCH: #21 “Duck & Cover” & #22 “Stray Rounds”
READ: Philippe Bourgois, In Search of Respect, finish book
Mar 10:
WATCH: #23 “Storm Warnings” & #24 “Bad Dreams”
Mar 12: Context: The Drug War
WATCH: #25 “Port in a Storm” (end season 2)
READ: Laura Lippman, “The Women of The Wire”
Mar 16:
WATCH: #26 “Time After Time” & #27 “All Due Respect”
READ: David Simon & Ed Burns, The Corner, “Winter” (through p. 182)
Simon & Burns interview with Little Melvin Williams
Mar 17:
WATCH: #28 “Dead Soldiers”
Mar 19: Essay #1 due before class
WATCH: #29 “Amsterdam” & #30 “Straight and True”
Mar 20-29: Spring Break
Mar 30:
WATCH: #31 “Homecoming” & #32 “Back Burners”
READ: David Simon & Ed Burns, The Corner, “Spring” & “Summer” (183-390)
Mar 31: Context: Urban Politics
WATCH: #33 “Moral Midgetry”
Guest: Prof. Kathy Morse
Apr 2:
WATCH: #34 “Slapstick” & #35 “Reformation”
Apr 6:
WATCH: #36 “Middle Ground” & #37 “Mission Accomplished” (end of season 3)
READ: David Simon & Ed Burns, The Corner, finish book
Apr 7:
WATCH: #38 “Boys of Summer”
Guest: Prof. Rebecca Tiger
Apr 9:
WATCH: #39 “Soft Eyes” & #40 “Home Rooms
Apr 13:
WATCH: #41 “Refugees” & #42 “Alliances”
READ: Jason Mittell, “All in the Game: The Wire, Serial Storytelling and Procedural Logic”
David Schwartz, “Kings and Pawns”
Dana Polan, “Invisible City”
Shaun Huston, “Balancing on The Wire”
Apr 14:
WATCH: #43 “Margin of Error”
Guest: Prof. John Elder
Apr 16: Context: Urban Education
WATCH: #44 “Unto Others” & #45 “Corner Boys”
Apr 20:
WATCH: #46 “Know Your Place” & #47 “Misgivings”
READ: Nelson George, “Across Racial Lines”
Janny Scott, “Who Gets to Tell a Black Story?”
James Williams, “The Lost Boys of Baltimore: Beauty and Desire in the Hood”
Apr 21:
WATCH: #48 “A New Day” & #49 “That’s Got His Own”
Apr 23: Context: American Racial Politics
WATCH: #50 “Final Grades” (end season 4)
Apr 27:
WATCH: #51 “More with Less” & #52 “Unconfirmed Reports”
READ: Kent Jones, “Down in the Hole”
Lawrence Lanahan, “CJR: Secrets of the City”
John Atlas and Peter Dreier, “Is The Wire Too Cynical?”
Anmol Chaddha, William Julius Wilson, and Sudhir Venkatesh, “In Defense of The Wire”
Atlas & Dreier respond
Apr 28:
WATCH: #53 “Not For Attribution” & #54 “Transitions”
Apr 30: Context: Urban Journalism
WATCH: #55 “React Quotes”
Guest: Matt Jennings
May 4:
WATCH: #56 “The Dickensian Aspect” & #57 “Took”
READ: David Simon, “Down To The Wire”
David Simon, “A Newspaper Can’t Love You Back”
Alan Sepinwall, “David Simon Q&A”
Mark Bowden, “The Angriest Man In Television”
David Simon on Bill Moyers Journal (read transcript or watch video)
David Simon, “Deleted Scene from The Wire”
May 5:
WATCH: #58 “Clarifications” & #59 “Late Editions”
May 7:
WATCH: #60 “-30-” (end of series)
May 15:
Final essay must be submitted via email, and context revisions posted to web by noon