Copaganda: Policing in the Popular Imagination [Online]
Full Tuition: $320 — Scholarship options are available in the drop-down enrollment menu for you to self-select.
Instructor: Berland | 5 Weeks | Wednesdays | February 21 - March 20 | 7:00 - 9:00 PM ET | ONLINE
Copaganda (or cop + propaganda) saturates scripted and social media: murder mysteries, true crime, cops on TikTok, paranormal procedurals, superpowered galactic guardians, kid detectives, buddy cops, gunslinger sheriffs, and so on. These representations are so pervasive that many of us hold multiple, and often contradictory, notions of what it means to interact with the police, or even to be police. How similar are fictional police to the officers we see on the streets and in the news? To what extent do narrative accounts of crime and policing reflect or shape public attitudes toward law enforcement? Why is copaganda so compelling to writers and audiences? Why is it so inescapable?
This five-week seminar interrogates the foundations, meanings, and implications of popular representations of policing in fiction, film, television, podcasting, and social media. In it, we will discuss: the histories of law enforcement and copaganda; the impact of copaganda on attitudes about criminality, race, class, ability, and gender; the literary affordances and limitations of the detective genre; and the reasons why these narratives have become so ubiquitous. Course content will involve readings, viewings, and listening to audio recordings. Texts may include films and series like Dirty Harry, Hot Fuzz, Point Break, True Detective, Lucifer, Paw Patrol, and other works by Agatha Christie, Alan Moore, Edgar Allan Poe, Jared Sexton, James Baldwin, Michelle Alexander, SkipIntro, Color of Change, Ramtin Arablouei and Rund Abdelfatah, and more.
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Recordings may be provided upon request for missed classes.
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Scholarships: We are currently able to offer three full scholarships per class. Our full scholarship tier is a nonrefundable offering, limited to one per student per month. Because our scholarship funding is limited, selecting multiple full scholarships in a single month will result in disenrollment from all classes. If the scholarship tier you need is sold out please email us directly, and we will add you to a waitlist and notify you if additional scholarships become available. Please see our FAQ for more information, including installment plans and refund policy.
Asynchronous Auditing: Classes are discussion-based and designed to be taken synchronously. However, we do offer an asynchronous audit option for most online classes if you need to follow along at your own pace. You must choose the audit option to receive all course recordings; please do not register using a scholarship if you do not plan to attend the majority of class sessions as you will not receive the recording materials to follow along. We do not automatically offer scholarships for auditors, but if you need one, you may request one by filling out this form.