Police violence in America has been the subject of criticism around the world. This symposium will examine narratives of injustice, crime and the policing of citizens as represented in The Wire (2002-2008), critically acclaimed as the finest television drama ever made.
Presentations will consider a number of questions: How does reading The Wire illuminate the sources and experiences of urban decline? The political and moral economy of racial domination? The policy landscape and institutional environment of contemporary American cities? The modes of storytelling that make these issues legible?
In addition, more than a decade after its premiere, scholars are well-positioned to consider The Wire anew, and from some distance: Its reception and “cult” status among both mass and academic audiences; its resonance with contemporary debates around urban and suburban state violence in the United States and abroad; the historical, political, and technological moment that it reflects and documents; and the shifts in strategies and technologies of police surveillance.
This event is made possible thanks to the Initiative on Race, Gender & Globalization at Yale University; the African-American Studies Department at Yale University; and ISPS Center for the Study of Inequality (I-CSI)
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Schedule
Breakfast: 8:30am-9:00am
Panel 1 (9:00am-11:00am)
Christopher Lebron (Yale University)
Patricia Fernández-Kelly (Princeton University)
Colin Wayne Leach (The University of Connecticut)
Moderator: James Forman, Jr. (Yale Law School)
Coffee: 11:00am-11:30am
Panel 2 (11:30am-1:00pm)
Patrick Jagoda (The University of Chicago)
Linda Williams (The University of California, Berkeley)
Moderator: Daphne Brooks (Yale University)
Lunch: 1:00pm-2:30pm
Panel 3 (2:30pm–4:30pm)
Jennifer Klein (Yale University)
Jean and John Comaroff (Harvard University)
Moderator: Vesla Weaver (Yale University)