The Philosophy of TV Noir »

The influence of classic film noir on the style and substance of television in the 1950s and 1960s has persisted to the present day. Its pervasiveness suggests the vitality of the noir depiction of human experience and the importance of TV for transmitting the legacy of film noir and producing new forms of noir. Noir television is also noteworthy for its capacity to raise philosophical questions about the nature of the human condition. Drawing from the fields of philosophy, media studies, and literature, the contributors to The Philosophy of TV Noir illuminate the best of noir television, including such shows as Dragnet, The Fugitive, Miami Vice, The X-Files, CSI and 24.

Preface and Acknowledgments     vii
An Introduction to the Philosophy of TV Noir   Steven M. Sanders     1
Realism, Relativism, and Moral Ambiguity
Dragnet, Film Noir, and Postwar Realism   R. Barton Palmer     33
Naked City: The Relativist Turn in TV Noir   Robert E. Fitzgibbons     49
John Drake in Greeneland: Noir Themes in Secret Agent   Sander Lee     69
Action and Integrity in The Fugitive   Aeon J. Skoble     83
Existentialism, Nihilism, and the Meaning of Life
Noir et Blanc in Color: Existentialism and Miami Vice   Steven M. Sanders     95
24 and the Existential Man of Revolt   Jennifer L. McMahon     115
Carnivale Knowledge: Give Me That Old-time Noir Religion   Eric Bronson     131
The Sopranos, Film Noir, and Nihilism   Kevin L. Stoehr     143
Crime Scene Investigation and the Logic of Detection
CSI and the Art of Forensic Detection   Deborah Knight   George McKnight     161
Detection and the Logic of Abduction in The X-Files   Jerold J. Abrams   Elizabeth Cooke     179
Autonomy, Selfhood, and Interpretation
Kingdom of Darkness: Autonomy and Conspiracy in The X-Files and Millennium   Michael Valdez Moses     203
The Prisoner and Self-Imprisonment   Shai Biderman   William J. Devlin     229
Twin Peaks, Noir, and Open Interpretation   Jason Holt     247
List of Contributors     261
Index     265