The star-crossed lovers, the love triangle, the notion of true love – television offers us many different takes on romance through its tropes and narratives. TV shows can either push the boundaries of our understanding of love or reinforce existing ideas of romance, dating and relationships. As a cultural practice it offers different representations and approaches, all of which we might incorporate in our daily lives.
In this seminar, we will focus on love in contemporary television series. Closely following Jason Mittell's text book Television and American Culture we will approach television from three main perspectives: Television institutions, meanings and practices in regard to romance. What kind of love is represented on television? What narratives are explored? How is romantic meaning produced and through which tropes? And how do audiences get invested in a fictional love story? We will approach television from a cultural studies perspective. Each week, we will focus on a key scholarly text and connect it to a case study consisting of different series and formats. After a first introduction to television studies in general, we will look at tropes and terminology specific to romance. We will then explore how television produces meaning through style and genre. Here, television is mainly understood as text, so we will learn how to read a television text. A major part of the seminar will look at television as a cultural representation and examine romantic narratives in regard to (American) identity. Finally, we will look at audiences, including marketing and fan studies.
The seminar offers an introduction to television studies while focusing on romance as a key topic. This class also encourages students to explore new forms of research and thus will introduce videographic essays.
Active participation is required. Texts will be distributed in advance and television shows will be made available through Netflix and/or DVD. |
