[ecrea] CFP: The Velvet Light Trap Issue #79: Serials, Seriality and Serialization

*_/The Velvet Light Trap/ Issue #79: Serials, Seriality and Serialization_*
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Last year’s Serialfound remarkable success not merely by crafting a
compelling story, but by embracing the narrative form highlighted in the
very title of the podcast. After nearly 100 million downloads, the
multi-part, longform nonfiction narrative not only drew widespread
attention to its particular narrative but also brought unprecedented
attention to the medium of podcasting.


This is not without precedent. A century ago, film serials proved an
effective means of enticing cinema’s early audiences to the theater
regularly and forging connections to more established media industries,
most notably mass-market magazines and daily newspapers. Multi-part,
long-form narratives did not begin with the mass production of cinema,
and precedents such as mass market literature and comic strips provided
sources for not only film serials but also radio and television serials.
Longform narrative has always been part of media culture, though often
limited to “low” or disreputable genres such as the poverty row
adventure serial or the television soap opera. More recently, serialized
narratives have returned to cultural prominence: now, the multi-part,
continuing narrative is free of its “lowbrow” connotations of
melodramatic cliff-hangers and instead associated with narrative
complexity, televisual quality, and appointment viewing or listening.


The recurrence of serial narratives as central to the emergence of new
media and the rejuvenation of old media raises several questions. In
what cultural and historical contexts have serial narratives thrived?
What are the determining economic justifications and how do these shape
serial forms? What are prevailing aesthetic practices, narrative
strategies, and genres in serial media forms? How do they vary among
different national contexts? How have these changed over time? What
unique spectatorial pleasures are afforded by seriality? What are its
implications reception studies? How have technologies, industry
practices, and transnational distribution influenced the proliferation
and/or popularity of serial narratives? How do we conceptualize
authorship and totality of serial forms?


For Issue 79 of VLT, the editors welcome work that explores
serialization of media in all its forms, contexts, and aspects. We
invite submissions that are transnational in scope and that examine
serial media from critical, theoretical, or historical perspectives.


Possible areas of inquiry include but are not limited to:


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    Panoramas, serial photography, and other pre-cinematic forms

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    Radio serials and podcasting

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    Spectatorship and reception

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    Theories of seriality

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    Televisual seriality--historical and contemporary

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    Transmediality and intermediality

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    Global & transnational media

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    Non-narrative serials

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    Non-fiction serials

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    Silent and studio-era film serials

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    Serial comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels

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    Industrial logics and modes of production

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    Narratology and aesthetics

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    Video games and seriality

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    Digital seriality

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    Serial pornography

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    Seriality and immersive narrative experiences

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    Race, class, gender, and sexuality in serial media

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    Soap operas

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    Film series, sequels, prequels

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    Serials in film, television and radio history

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    Stardom in film/television serials

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    Experimental and avant-garde serials



Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be between 8,000 and 10,000 words, formatted in
Chicago Style. Please submit an electronic copy of the paper, along with
a separate one-page abstract, both saved as a Microsoft Word file.
Remove any identifying information so that the submission is suitable
for anonymous review. Quotations not in English should be accompanied by
translations. Send electronic manuscripts and/or any questions to
(velvetlighttrap.austin /at/ gmail.com)
<mailto:(velvetlighttrap.austin /at/ gmail.com)>by January 31st, 2016.


About the Journal

VLT is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal of film, television, and new
media. The journal draws on a variety of theoretical and historiographic
approaches from the humanities and social sciences and welcomes any
effort that will help foster the ongoing processes of evaluation and
negotiation in media history and criticism. While VLT maintains its
traditional commitment to the study of American film, it also expands
its scope to television and other media, to adjacent institutions, and
to other nations’ media. The journal encourages both approaches and
objects of study that have been neglected or excluded in past scholarship.


Graduate students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the
University of Texas at Austin coordinate issues in alternation, and each
issue is devoted to a particular theme. VLT’s Editorial Advisory Board
includes such notable scholars as Charles Acland, Richard Allen, Ben
Aslinger, Caetlin Benson-Allott, Mark Betz, Corey Creekmur, Michael
Curtin, Kay Dickinson, Bambi Haggins, Scott Higgins, Mary Celeste
Kearney, Jon Kraszewski, Lucas Hilderbrand Roberta Pearson, Nicholas
Sammond, Jacob Smith, Jonathan Sterne, Cristina Venegas. VLT’s graduate
student editors are assisted by their local faculty advisors: Mary
Beltrán, Ben Brewster, Jonathan Gray, Michele Hilmes, Lea Jacobs, Derek
Johnson, Vance Kepley, Shanti Kumar, Charles Ramírez Berg, Thomas
Schatz, and Janet Staiger.


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