From the point of view of media studies, the recent cultural legitimisation of television serialisation, the proliferation of film series inspired by comic books and popular novels, or the decades-long success of videogame sagas are neither new nor surprising phenomena: in fact, since the early part of the nineteenth century, the serialisation of narrative texts has played a central role in the history of cultural industries, contributing crucially to the development of the modern novel, to the formation of popular genres such as the detective story and the soap opera, as well as to the configuration of new media such as comics, radio and television. The course aims therefore to offer the conceptual tools to contextualise the phenomenon of seriality in mass media from a socio-historical perspective and to reflect on the nature and structure of serial narratives through narrative theory and cultural studies.
Firstly, the course will highlight the relationship between seriality and the historical, social and economic context in which modern cultural industries took shape between the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. In this context, the serialisation of serial narratives will be analysed in relation to the emergence of new genres of popular fiction, the practice of adaptation and theories of intertextuality and intermediality. Secondly, the main characteristics and typologies of serial narratives will be examined, both from the point of view of their narrative structures and by looking at the cultural discourses and social dynamics promoted by seriality. In particular, the crucial role of characters in the construction of the serial mechanism will be analysed in this context, comparing different approaches in the use of this element. Finally, we will address the concept - increasingly central in the practice as well as in the debate about contemporary serial narratives - of world-building, that is, of the setting up - even before the creation of a specific narrative - of a whole space that both the characters and the audiences can explore in multiple directions and through multiple modalities.