2103-1: Seminar Kulturstudien: Fictionalising British Politics on Television: Thriller, Drama, Comedy
dienstags, 11.15 – 12.45 Uhr, Seminargebäude S 125, Dietmar Böhnke
Reading list:
Alvarado, Manuel et al., eds. (2015), The SAGE Handbook of Television Studies. Los Angeles: SAGE; Fielding, Steven (2014), A State of Play: British Politics on Screen, Stage and Page. London: Bloomsbury; Helsby, Wendy, ed. (2005), Understanding Representation. London: BFI; Kamm, Jürgen, and Birgit Neumann, eds. (2016), British TV Comedies: Cultural Concepts, Contexts and Controversies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; Kuhn, Raymond (2007), Politics and the Media in Britain. New York: Macmillan; Riegert, Kristina, ed. (2007), Politicotainment: Television’s Take on the Real. New York: Peter Lang; van Zoonen, L. (2005), Entertaining the Citizen: When Politics and Popular Culture Converge. Rowman & Littlefield; Wright, Tony (22013), British Politics. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: OUP.
Exam: term paper (Hausarbeit) in this or one of the other seminars of the module
British television has always had a close relationship with British politics in more than one sense. One of the ways in which the medium interacts with the political sphere is by portraying historical and current politicians and political institutions in more or less disguised shape in its non-documentary programmes, be they thrillers, (docu-)dramas, or satirical shows. In the past few years, programmes such as This England, A Very English Scandal, Bodyguard or Brexit: The Uncivil War were among the most popular and hotly debated TV shows with the British viewing public. They belong in a tradition including such (near) classics as Yes (Prime) Minister, Spitting Image, Edge of Darkness, House of Cards (the 1990s BBC original), Our Friends in the North, The Deal, State of Play, Britz, The Thick of It, The Government Inspector, Mo, and Coalition. In this course, we are going to watch, analyse and discuss some of the above media texts against the background of the changing British television landscape and the contemporary British political system (1980s to the present), thereby tackling questions of genre, representation, popular culture, power and ideology.
- Trainer/in: Böhnke Dietmar