Date	Topic/Screening	Readings
8/23	Introduction to the Course The Andy Griffith Show (1966) click for illustrations :   Make-a-Meme.org or create on your own
8/28	TV Structure , Narrative Structure (Classicism) Friends (1999) click for illustrations Recommended: RBG (2018), Bama Art House, 7:30	Butler, chs. 1, 3 (pp. 24-34) click for illustrations click for illustrations
8/30	Narrative Structure (Series & Serial) The Big Bang Theory (2008) click for illustrations	Butler, chs. 2, 3 (pp. 34-51) click for illustrations click for illustrations
9/4	Characters, Actors, Stars click for illustrations	Butler, ch. 4 click for illustrations
9/6, 11	Beyond and Beside Narrative Cops (1989-) click for illustrations, CBS/NBC news click for illustrations, The Daily Show (1996-) click for illustrations Storage Wars (2010-) click for illustrations Who Wants to be a Millionaire (2005) click for illustrations College Football (2016) Rosh Hashanah	Butler, ch. 5 click for illustrations recommended: Salon on Reality TV (local copy) Storage Wars, "Concerns About Authenticity"
9/13	The Commercial Old Spice Hawkridge, Chili's, AT&T, McDonald's, Best Buy, Subway, Little Ceasar's, Ford SYNC click for illustrations	Butler, ch. 6 click for illustrations click for video
9/18	Exam #1 -- exam preparation Gillette Fusion commercial
9/20	Mise-en-Scene Stranger Things (2016) click for illustrations click for video	Butler, chs. 7 and 8 click for illustrations click for illustrations
9/25	Cinematography/Videography click for illustrations click for illustrations New Girl (2011) click for video He Said, She Said (1991) CameraSim Exercise	Butler, ch. 9 click for illustrations
9/27	Editing: Single Camera Mode click for illustrations Northern Exposure (1990-95) Northern Exposure clip The Sopranos click for illustrations Chevrolet ad click for illustrations click for illustrations	Butler, ch. 10 (pp. 257-274) click for illustrations
10/2	Editing: Multiple Camera Mode Seinfeld (1990-98) click for illustrations click for illustrations All My Children (1970-2011) All My Children As the World Turns (2008) click for illustrations Days of Our Lives (2017) click for illustrations click for illustrations The New Adventures of Old Christine (2006-10) click for illustrations	Butler, ch. 10 (pp. 274-280) click for illustrations
10/4	Sound Exercise: Dodge commercial click for illustrations	Butler, ch. 11 click for illustrations
10/9	Special Topics I: Music Television The Buggles, The Replacements, Alanis Morissette, Peter Gabriel, Guns N' Roses, Lauryn Hill, Lamp of Memoryclick for illustrations	Allan click for illustrations
10/11	Special Topics II: Animation click for illustrations Steamboat Willie (1928) , Gerald McBoing-Boing (1951) , Crusader Rabbit (1949-51,'57-69) , The Flintstones (1960-66), The Simpsons (1989-)	Butler/Goldmark, "Animated Television" click for illustrations
10/16	Television Studies: An Overview The Honeymooners (1955-56) click for illustrations Scrubs (2001-10) click for video illustrations	Butler, ch. 12; Butler, Appendix II Television Style password: telestylistics
10/18	Exam #2 Review Select a question from a Screenpedia article. Recommended: Submit Exam #2 preparation
10/19 Friday	Exam #2 preparation due 4:30 p.m., Dr. Butler's mailbox, JCM office (400 Phifer)
10/23	Exam #2 (excludes "Television Studies") R.E.M. "Stand" (frame grabs)
10/25	Mid-Semester Study Break
10/30	Style and Stylistics The Mindy Project (2012-) click for illustrations	Butler, ch. 13, pp. 319-323; Butler, "Televisuality and..." (PDF)
10/31	Last day to drop a course with a grade of "W".
11/1	Genre Screening Martin Kane, Private Eye (1949-54) click for illustrations Dragnet (1951-59, 1967-70, 1989-91, 2003-04) click for illustrations Detour (1945) click for illustrations	Butler, ch. 13, pp. 317-319 and 323-328 click for illustrations
11/6	Genre Study	Mittell, "Policing Genres"
11/8	Semiotics Screening Stranger Things (2016) [[WIKI]] Fangface (1980) click for illustrations The Wonder Years (1991) click for illustrations	Butler, ch. 13, pp. 328-336 click for illustrations
11/13	Semiotics	Seiter, "Semiotics, Structuralism..."
11/15	Ideological Criticism, Cultural Studies & Production Studies Screening My So-Called Life (1994) click for illustrations	Butler, ch. 14, pp. 339-352
11/20	View on your own: Modern Family (2010) click for illustrations click for illustrations I Love Lucy (1952) click for illustrations click for illustrations The Wonder Years (1988) click for illustrations
11/22	Thanksgiving Holiday
11/27	Ideological Criticism, Cultural Studies & Production Studies	Thompson & Mittell, How to Read Television
11/29	Discourse & Identity Screening Designing Women (1991) click for illustrations The Real World (1992) click for illustrations Justify My Love (1990) click for illustrations	Butler, ch. 14, pp. 352-361 click for illustrations
12/4	Discourse & Identity I & II: Gender and Queer Theory Girlfriends (2000) click for illustrations click for illustrations Fresh Off the Boat (2016) click for illustrations
12/6	Discourse & Identity III: Race and Ethnicity black-ish (2015) click for illustrations	Smith-Shomade, "Laughing Out Loud"
	Course Summary / Exam Review
12/7	Television Extra-Credit Due, 11:59 p.m.
12/13	Final Exam Period, 7:00 p.m., Thursday Exam #3

Reading List

Textbook:

Jeremy G. Butler, Television: Visual Storytelling and Screen Culture, 5th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2018). Online resources.

Additional Readings (Alphabetical Order):

PDFs of the readings are posted on Blackboard Learn.

• Blaine Allan, "Music Television," from the third, out-of-print edition of Television
• Jeremy G. Butler, "Televisuality and the Resurrection of the Sitcom in the 2000s," in Television Style (NY: Routledge, 2010), 173-222.
• Jeremy G. Butler and Daniel Goldmark, "Animated Television: The Narrative Cartoon," from the third, out-of-print edition of Television
• Gary Copeland, "A History of Television Style," from the third, out-of-print edition of Television
• Jason Mittell, "Policing Genres," in Genre and Television: From Cop Show to Cartoons in American Culture (NY: Routledge, 2004).
• Ellen Seiter, "Semiotics, Structuralism and Television," in Robert C. Allen, Channels of Discourse, Reassembled, second edition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992).
• Beretta E. Smith-Shomade, "Laughing Out Loud: Negras Negotiating Situation Comedy," in Shaded Lives: African-American Women and Television (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 24-68.
• Selections from Ethan Thompson & Jason Mittell, How to Watch Television (NY: NYU Press, 2013).

Copyright © 1994-2024 Jeremy G. Butler.
Email contact: jbutler@ua.edu

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Last revised: 27 August 2019 21:25:56
Equal Opportunity | Disclaimer | Privacy