In
Treme, Jaimey Fisher analyzes how the HBO television series
Treme treads new ground by engaging with historical events and their traumatic aftermaths, in particular, with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and subsequent flooding in New Orleans. Instead of building up to a devastating occurrence, David Simon's much anticipated follow-up to
The Wire (2002-8) unfolds with characters coping in the wake of catastrophe, in a mode of what Fisher explores as a prevailing mode of ""afterness.""
Treme charts these changes while also memorializing the number of New Orleans cultures that were immediately endangered. David Simon's and Eric Overmyer's
Treme (2010-13) attempts something unprecedented for a multi-season series. Although the show follows, in some ways, in the celebrated footsteps of
The Wire-for example, in its elegiac tracking of the historical struggles of an American city-Fisher investigates how
Treme varies from
The Wire's work with genre and what replaces it:
The Wire is a careful, even baroque variation on the police drama, while
Treme dispenses with genre altogether. This poses considerable challenges for popular television, which Simon and Overmyer address in several ways, including offering a carefully montaged map of New Orleans and foregrounding the distance witnessing of watershed events there. Another way in which
Treme sets itself apart is its memorialization of the city's inestimable contributions to American music, especially to jazz, soul, rhythm and blues, rap, rock, and funk.
Treme gives such music and its many makers unprecedented attention, both in terms of screen time for music and narrative exposition around musicians. A key element of the volume is its look at the show's themes of race, crime, and civil rights as well as the corporate versus community recovery and remaking of the city.
Treme's synthesizing melange of the arts in their specific geographical context, coupled with political and socio-economic analysis of the city, highlights the show's unique approach. Fans of the works of Simon and Overmyer, as well as television studies students and scholars, will enjoy this keen-eyed approach to a beloved show.
About the AuthorJaimey Fisher is professor of German and cinema and digital media and director of the UC Davis Humanities Institute at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of
Christian Petzold and Disciplining Germany: Youth, Reeducation, and Reconstruction after the Second World War (Wayne State University Press, 2007). He edited the volume
Generic Histories of German Cinema: Genre and its Deviations and has also co-edited
The Berlin School and its Global Contexts: A Transnational Art Cinema (Wayne State University Press, 2018), among other edited volumes.
Book InformationISBN 9780814341513
Author Jaimey FisherFormat Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint Wayne State University PressPublisher Wayne State University Press
Weight(grams) 145g
Dimensions(mm) 177mm * 127mm * 8mm