CSP 4 "To Be Continued...": The Serial Impulse in Literature and Other Media

Ever since the emergence of serialized formats of fiction in the 19th century, the phrase “to be continued” has left readers in a state of suspense. Eager to keep reading along at home, they now had to impatiently wait for the next installment in order to continue. This course will examine the aesthetics and practices of seriality from the mid-19th century to the present. We will consider how the concept of seriality, as a common logic underlying mass media production, and the series as a distinct form of open-ended composition, articulate themselves in different historical periods across different media (literature, art, television, film), in works ranging from the "mass productions" of popular culture to the artistic experiments of the avant-garde. Course material includes Goethe, Poe, Dickens, Kafka, Benjamin, Deleuze, Warhol, Eco, “The Perils of Pauline” (1914), and “Twin Peaks” (1990-91).