'Lectures to Beats': “Government Loves Me…Government Loves Me Not”

Lectures to Beats - Episode 1: "Government Loves Me...Government Loves Me Not" from Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele on Vimeo.

In the series premiere, “Government Loves Me…Government Loves Me Not” examines the complex and seemingly dysfunctional relationship between black Americans and the government.

Ph.D. History Candidate Paul Adler uses the critically acclaimed HBO series, “The Wire,” to describe the U.S. labor movement and the hardships communities endured as a result of technological developments in the manufacturing industry.

Government Professor Bruce Douglass and History Professor Adam Rothman share their thoughts about the dominant U.S. political groups and the contradictions and tensions that exist in both the liberal and conservative ideologies.

History Professor Maurice Jackson takes viewers through a series of anecdotes and quotes that speak to the significance of black Americans and race relations throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

Professor Turns to HBO's 'The Wire' for Course

Professor turns to HBO's 'The Wire' for Class

by Michael Woodsmall

Anne-Maria Makhulu was never much of a couch potato and had never seen The Wire. But when at a conference a few years ago she overheard mentor Judith Halberstam, an English professor at the University of Southern California, having an animated conversation about the show, she decided that it must be worthy of a viewing. She took it with her as her only company while finishing a book manuscript in New York City. And it was then that she thought she had to teach a course on this.

When she returned to Durham, she expressed her interest in teaching the course at a faculty meeting and was greeted with an enthusiastially positive reaction. That response was validated by the course’s high enrollment in its first semester of being offered.

“For me, as an anthropologist, The Wire is incredibly socially robust. It reveals a world with all of its [connections],” Makhulu says, channeling Halberstam’s enthusiasm.

In a recent interview on Up Front with Tony Cox, Makhulu and Jason Mittell, a professor of American studies and media culture at Middlebury College, discussed the television program’s use in classrooms. Mittell emphasized how it brings together seemingly disparate worlds.

The extraordinary social imagination of head writers David Simon and Ed Burns portrays oft-ignored issues in an accessible way, encouraging conversations that were only whispers before.

“Most of us are teaching this as a ploy,” admits Makhulu. “Not to be deceitful, but to appeal to students to think about very difficult issues.”

The course is in the catalogs at the University of California—Berkeley, Middlebury and Harvard, though each iteration has a different curriculum. At Berkeley, renowned feminist scholar and author of Hardcore, Linda Williams teaches it from a more literary perspective, asking the question, what is so great about The Wire?

Read the Full Article @ The Chronicle

'The Wire' On Campus

Upfront with Tony Cox discusses the use of the critically acclaimed HBO series The Wire in college and university classrooms with Anne-Maria Makhulu (Duke University) and Jason Mittell (Middlebury College).

Listen HERE

The Ivory 'Wire'

January 3, 2010
Blackboard | Curriculum

Deconstructing ‘The Wire’
By AMANDA M. FAIRBANKS

NEARLY two years after the final season of “The Wire,” the acclaimed HBO series that counts a devoted fan base among collegians, scholars are finding compelling sociology in the gray-tinged urban life it chronicled.

Courses are cropping up in catalogs across the country.

William Julius Wilson, the prominent Harvard sociologist, is the latest to announce he will teach a course on the show, next fall out of the black studies department.

For the 40th anniversary of the death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., when Dr. Wilson gathered scholars, activists and the show’s creator to analyze the series’ impact, he did not mince words: “It has done more to enhance our understanding of the challenges of urban life and the problems of urban inequality than any other media event or scholarly publications, including studies by social scientists.”

This semester at Duke University, Anne-Maria Makhulu, a professor of cultural anthropology, will introduce a course that explores cities — “urbanization, de-industrialization, the ‘ghetto,’ the figure of the queer thug, hip-hop, and many other aspects of urban black experience” — through “The Wire,” which was set in Baltimore. The waiting list is almost as long as the enrollment cap.

Read the Full Article @ The New York Times

Tallahassee Bound

Thursday September 24, 2009
Florida State University
5pm
208 Student Service Building

"Is Hip Hop (Politically) Dead?"

The Department of English is sponsoring a roundtable discussion with Professor Mark Anthony Neal on contemporary rap music. Additional panelists include Florida State's David Ikard, Assistant Professor of English, and Dr. Sandra Miles, Assistant Director of Student Affairs.

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Friday September 25, 2009
Florida State University
3pm
013 Williams

Mark Anthony Neal Lecture:

'A Man Without a Country': Boundaries of Legibility and Cosmopolitan Masculinity in The Wire"

A talk on HBO’s show The Wire

Ain't No Love...Chatting Up THE WIRE

Heart of the City: Black Urban Life on The Wire

Critically acclaimed and nationally syndicated, HBO’s series The Wire depicts a racialized postindustrial cityscape, marred by the brutal provenance of the drug economy. In its five seasons, the series is as much a dramatic achievement as it is a complex portrait of a black urban experience. Featuring a predominantly black cast, The Wire is an exceptional cultural text from which to examine a wide range of urban issues, to be approached from literary, historical, political, and sociological perspectives.

This symposium proposes a critical consideration of The Wire, which treats the show as both a topic and a model of critique. In this sense, The Wire can serve as a common point of discussion, as a viable vehicle of social engagement in its own right and a text worthy of careful and extended investigation.

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SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

Thursday, January 29, 2009
Location: Angell Hall, Auditorium A
435 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI

Heart of the City: A Conversation about The Wire
Keynote Event, 5:00 PM
Clark Johnson, Director, Actor ("Gus Haynes")
Sonja Sohn, Actress ("Detective Kima Greggs")

Opening Welcome by Kevin Gaines, Director, Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan
Moderated by Robin R. Means Coleman, Associate Professor of Communications Studies and Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan

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Friday, January 30, 2009

Location: Palmer Commons, University of Michigan
100 Washtenaw Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI

Registration opens at 8:30 AM and runs throughout the day. Note: All lectures and panels are free and open to the public; however a registration fee of $10 will be required for lunch on Friday, and will include a welcome packet, souvenirs, and free admittance to the symposium closing reception.

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Panel 1A, 9:30-11:00 AM
Teaching on The Wire
Moderator: Stephen M. Ward, Assistant Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan

The papers presented on this panel either look to the series to present and demonstrate the social problems of teaching in our current epoch or use the series itself within teaching practice to confront those dynamics.

"Jukin' the Stats: Education and Inequality in the Fourth Season of The Wire"
Jonathan Gayles, Assistant Professor of African American Studies, Georgia State University

"Sorting Out the Bad Apples: Public Schools and the Code of the Street in the Fourth Season of The Wire"
Shavon Holcomb, Sociology Undergraduate UM-Dearborn, Paul Draus, Assistant Professor of Sociology, UM Dearborn, and anonymous student at Ryan Correctional Facility

"Lambs to the Slaughter": Pedgagogy at Edward Tillman Middle School"
Dirk C. Wendthorf, Professor of Humanities and German, Florida Community College at Jacksonville

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Panel 1B, 9:30-11:00 AM
Race, Labor, and Affect in the Neoliberal City
Moderator: Angela Dillard, Associate Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan

These are all papers which find in 'The Wire' an address to the modes of neoliberal politics/economics and their structural effects on a global community.

"A Precarious Lunch": Bodie, McNulty and the (Im)possibilities of Post-Ford Affinity in The Wire's Fourth Season"
Robert LeVertis Bell, Graduate Student in American Culture, University of Michigan

"'It's Nice here, Huh?': Affective Labor and Dispossession in West Baltimore"
Robert Choflet, Graduate Student in American Studies, University of Maryland

"'Pussy in a Can': Sexual Trafficking, Neoliberal Institutions and the Place of Labor and Race in The Wire"
Kimberly Lamm, Assistant Professor of English and Humanities, Pratt Institute

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Panel 2A, 11:10-12:40 pm
Sex and Sexuality in the City
Moderator: Matthew Blanton, Graduate Student in American Culture, University of Michigan

These are all papers that address black sexuality in The Wire.

"Mainstreaming Omar: The 'Homo-Thug' Representation in The Wire
Robin R. Means Coleman, Associate Professor of Communications Studies and Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan

"Lesbian Cop Butch Killer: Black Female Masculinities in HBO’s The Wire"
Jennifer DeClue, Graduate Student in Interdisciplinary Studies, California State University, Los Angeles

(Title Forthcoming)
Saida Grundy, Graduate Student in Sociology, University of Michigan

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Panel 2B, 11:10-12:40 pm
Reading The Wire: The Politics of Authenticity in Season Five
Moderator: Paul Farber, Graduate Student in American Culture, University of Michigan

These papers all address the fifth season, its focus on the Baltimore Sun, and the contrasting logics of televisual and journalistic representation.

"A Hidden City on Display: The Language Ideology of H.L. Mencken and the (Un)Making of Authenticity on The Wire"
Joshua B. Friedman, Graduate Student in Anthropology, University of Michigan

"Race, Representation and Serial Form: The Fifth Season of The Wire"
Leigh Claire La Berge, Assistant Professor of Humanities, University of Chicago

"Watching the Fire Burn": Urban Representation and Popular Discourse
Jacob Scobey-Thal, Undergraduate in Urban Studies, University of Pennsylvania

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Lunch, 12:40-2:00 AM

Registration required.

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Panel 3A, 2:15-3:45 PM
Do Right Woman, Do Right Man
Moderator: Sherie Randolph, Assistant Professor of History & Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan

These papers all address constructions and performances of femininity and masculinity on The Wire.

"Three Bad Mothers: Black Motherhood and Personal Responsibility in The Wire"
Elizabeth Ault, Graduate Student in American Studies, University of Minnesota

(Title Forthcoming)
Aime Ellis, Associate Professor of English, Michigan State University

"Building Blocks to Blocks With Buildings That Make a Killing: Reassessing Policy, Procedure, & Protocol in Urban Living"
Wilfredo Gomez, Graduate Student in English, Bucknell University

"'Be The Man of the Family": Black Mothers and Sons in The Wire"
Sidra Smith Wahaltere, Graduate Student in English, University of Denver

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Panel 3B, 2:15-3:45 PM
Hermeneutics of Strategy and Surveillance
Moderator: Robert Bell, Graduate Student in American Culture, University of Michigan

"The Game is the Game"
Paul Anderson, Associate Professor of American Culture and Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan

"Greek Gods in Baltimore: Ancient Tragedy and the Post-industrial American City"
Chris Love, Lecturer, Comparative Literature, University of Michigan

"Parallax Viewing, or Throwing Rocks at the Panoptic Lens"
Robert R. Maclean, Graduate Student in History, University of Michigan

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Closing Roundtable, 4:00 PM
The Wire in an Obama America
Panelists:

Mark Anthony Neal - Professor of African and African American Studies, Duke University

Hua Hsu - Assistant Professor of English, Vassar College

James Peterson - Assistant Professor of English, Bucknell University

Salamishah Tillet - Assistant Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania

Moderated by:

Jonathan Metzl - Associate Professor in Psychiatry and Women's Studies, University of Michigan

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Reception

7:00 PM-10:00 PM
Reception to follow Closing Roundtable at The Gallery Project (215 South Fourth Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI). Free for symposium attendees; $5 donation at the door without symposium registration.