Since the turn of the 21st century, the landscape of television has
decisively changed. Whereas seriality had been part and parcel of
television entertainment since the 1940s, the past two decades have
witnessed the rise of new technologies and increasingly "complex and
elaborate forms" (Mittell 2015), with HBO and Netflix playing leading
roles. Particularly in its manifold transgressions of political, social,
and ethical boundaries, the contemporary American TV serial serves as
both a laboratory for and diagnostic platform of current epistemes and
ideological codes. In 15 interdisciplinary perspectives from the United
States and Europe, this volume provides a critical diagnosis of the
genre's politics of gender and ethnicity, difference, normativity and
representational control. Contesting the popular term "quality TV,"
'Transgressive Television' provides original work on TV series as
diverse as 'Twin Peaks', 'The Sopranos', 'Breaking Bad', 'The Wire',
'House of Cards', 'Homeland', and many others.