A British university is offering a course on cult US television series The Wire as part of its sociology degree.

The 10-week module will be offered to all final year students at the University of York. Titled The Wire as Social Science Fiction?, it will use the HBO series to look at topics including class, race, political process and the city. Set in Baltimore, The Wire follows the fortunes of the American city's drugs dealers and the police officers trying to battle against them.

Professor Roger Burrows, head of sociology at the university, said: "We look at The Wire as a form of entertainment that does the job some of the social sciences have been failing to do." In a multimedia age, he added, students find it increasingly difficult to concentrate on a lecturer "standing up and talking in front of a power point presentation". He said: "It's easier to get students to use The Wire as a way of looking at the current political system than it is to get them to read a dull book on it."

But the 24 students who have already signed up for the course will still have their work cut out for them - they will need to have watched all 60 one-hour episodes beforehand. "I find that students, and people in general, are more willing to work their way through difficult stuff if they've already become interested in the issues by watching The Wire," Prof Burrows added. "After watching the show, people are keen to discuss things they weren't previously interested in discussing. The show was doing a better job than we were in interesting people in the profound problems of urbanism."

What's the big deal? I spent most of my time in college watching TV!

If you must know I'm doing my homework...

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