Using case study and textual analysis approaches, students will examine how specific police procedurals, movies, and other cultural texts showcase police authority in relation to certain communities, and consider how these texts reflect, uphold, and/or challenge prevailing views on law and order and criminal justice. Our explorations of how media and cultural industries have framed policing will pay particular attention to questions of power, race, gender, sexuality, class, and geography. These explorations will also include learning about and learning to dialogue, given the diverse – and often contentious – views about policing in America. Students will have an opportunity to interact with speakers representing different positions that relate to mediated perceptions — as well as lived experiences of — policing. Class assignments and activities will enhance students’ abilities to productively discuss complex issues that are frequently sanitized or homogenized within U.S. popular culture.
I now welcome and appreciate dialogue with those who disagree with me. In my personal and professional life, I have become much more comfortable with and appreciative of dialogue with those on the opposite side of ideological issues in healthy debate.