An MTSU professor will peek behind the prison bars of the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black” in an upcoming lecture set Thursday, Feb. 26.

Dr. Clare Bratten

Dr. Clare Bratten, a professor in the Department of Electronic Media Communication, will present “Orange is the New Black: How We Talk About the Show” at 3 p.m. Feb. 26 in Room 100 of the James Union Building.

The comedy-drama follows the plight of Piper Chapman, a woman who loses her comfortable New York life when she is convicted in connection with a youthful indiscretion.

Plots revolve around how she adjusts to a life of prison privation and an array of quirky fellow inmates and guards.

“Orange is the New Black” has been nominated for numerous awards and won a Peabody Award in 2013.

The show also won the award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series at the 2015 Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony and the 2014 Emmy Award for Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series.

Uzo Aduba, who portrays Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren, captured the 2015 SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series as well as the 2014 Emmy for Oustanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.

“The talk explores whether the wildly popular series … is a soap opera-styled serial, a socially conscious critique of prison life or a continuation of a ‘Women In Prison’ genre that began in the early days of Hollywood,” Bratten said.

Bratten’s free public presentation is the latest in MTSU’s Women’s and Gender Studies Research Series.

For more information, contact the Women’s and Gender Studies office at 615-898-5910 or womenstu@mtsu.edu.

— Gina K. Logue (gina.logue@mtsu.edu)