Serialization in Popular Culture

Above, two stills from The Perils of Pauline, which I take here as an opportunity to announce an exciting book set to come out at the end of this year: Serialization in Popular Culture, edited by Robert Allen and Thijs van den Berg at the University of Amsterdam. The book, which I am very proud to be a part of (with a piece called “The Logic of the Line Segment: Continuity and Discontinuity in the Serial-Queen Melodrama”), will be published by Routledge as part of the Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies series.

Here’s a brief description of the collection:

From prime-time television shows and graphic novels to the development of computer game expansion packs, the recent explosion of popular serials has provoked renewed interest in the history and economics of serialization, as well as the impact of this cultural form on readers, viewers, and gamers. In this volume, contributors—literary scholars, media theorists, and specialists in comics, graphic novels, and digital culture—examine the economic, narratological, and social effects of serials from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century and offer some predictions of where the form will go from here.

With sections on “Victorian Serials,” “Serialization on Screen,” “Serialization in Comic Books and Graphic Novels,” and “Digital Serialization,” this book is going to be an important contribution to the emerging field of seriality studies. But don’t take my word for it; here’s an endorsement from an expert in the field:

“This collection presents an ambitious and original intervention in the field of seriality studies. It captures the workings of serialization as a core principle of modernity by taking stock of a wide range of medial formats and narrative and non-narrative configurations from the nineteenth century to the present time.” — Ruth Mayer, University of Hanover, Germany