[Commlist] CFP: Seriality research - Journal for Literary and Intermedial Crossings (JLIC)

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CALL FOR ARTICLES


As a follow up to the one-day CLIC conference on Seriality in December 
2020, the Spring 2022 issue of Journal for Literary and Intermedial 
Crossings (JLIC) will focus on Seriality research. Guest editors are 
Ronald Geerts, Anneleen Masschelein, Ernest Mathijs, Bart Nuyens.


The Journal for Literary and Intermedial Crossings (JLIC) is an 
international, peer-reviewed open access journal. It publishes 
high-quality, innovative research engaging with literary and intermedial 
phenomena from various methodological angles and a wide range of 
disciplines including studies on literature, theatre, media and culture. 
The e-journal is supported by an international editorial board and aimed 
at an academic readership. JLIC offers an online publication platform to 
researchers from various fields engaging either directly or indirectly 
with the study of hybrid literary and/or intermedial phenomena.


Seriality has become “an endemic feature of our twenty-first-century, 
hypermediated world” (Lindner 2014, ix) permeating contemporary 
literature, theatre, tv-series, feature films, narrative games, 
podcasts, YouTube channels, Instagram and other forms of storytelling 
social media.

Seriality is traditionally associated with repetition and variation. 
However, our interest seems to have shifted to the dynamic qualities of 
seriality. What strikes us and interests us today is not so much 
repetition but evolution, the development of (story) lines. As a result, 
the narrative aspects of seriality appear to grow in importance, which 
seems to go hand in hand with the rise of what is covered by the broad 
umbrella term ‘storytelling’ (sometimes ‘complex storytelling’, e.g. 
Mittell 2015). Although seriality is often explicitly linked to popular 
culture (e.g. Kelleter 2017), an increased interest in ‘seriality as a 
strategy’ can be observed in all kinds of art forms. Seriality also 
seems to be an important element in multi, cross and transmedial 
storytelling as serial narrative strategies spill from one media to 
another. To the idea of a Serial Shakespeare as “an infinite variety of 
appropriations in American TV drama” (Bronfen 2020) Ivo Van Hove and 
Internationaal Theater Amsterdam recently added not just their 
theatrical serial Romeinse Tragedies (2007, Roman Tragedies) in a 
carefully reworked online streaming version (2021) but also a ‘classic’ 
weekly -thus not bingeable- ten-episode tv-serial on Dutch television 
(2021).

No wonder some see emerging a new field of research, seriality studies 
(Denson 2011).


We welcome academic and artistic research contributions.


Topics for articles might include, but are not limited to:

·       Seriality as an inter-, trans-, cross-media research field, ...

·       Seriality and story worlds, ...

·       Seriality in anthology series (Black Mirror, True Detective, 
other, literature), ...

·       Seriality in literature: from crime literature to novel cycles 
(e.g. Proust, Knausgard, Elena Ferrante), ...

·       Seriality as research process (theater, dance, performance, 
writing, eg Luk Perceval, Milo Rau, Michiel Vandevelde, Radouan Mriziga, 
Kenneth Goldsmith), ...

·       Seriality and time (eg Richard Linklater (Boyhood, Before 
trilogy), François Truffaut (the "Antoine Doinel" films), Michael Apted 
(Up series), ...

·       Seriality and how it influenced the conception of the term 
"character" (see previous point, but also multiple protagonists, 
influences on the narrative construction of the character, ...

·       Seriality as never-ending story: 1001 nights (also in its many 
Covid-19 apparitions?), ...

·       Seriality as episodicity and seriality-as-franchise: expanding 
series by developing relatively independent elements. Historical 
examples (literature, comics, theater, film). How far can one go (cf. 
the lack of success from recent Star Wars "episodes")? (Franchising also 
to ‘occupy the market’, as the producers of the successful series CSI 
themselves created franchises very quickly, for fear that the story 
formula would be copied by others.), ...

·       Seriality as a tension-building strategy (e.g. in podcasts, in 
documentaries or docu-fiction) when narrative strategies from fiction 
are used in documentary series of the type Wild Wild Country, Making a 
Murderer, De verdwijning van Britta Cloetens). How is its factual 
character influenced by the fictional narrative strategies?

·       Seriality as a commercial strategy: how an audience's 
familiarity with characters, theme, arena and genre generates a 
customer-binding effect. To what extent is there a tension between the 
provision of fixed story elements vs variation, surprise, innovation? ...

·       Seriality as fragmentation, e.g. p.o.v. storytelling of the same 
events from different successive narrators, creating repetitions and 
creating cognitive dissonance, Rashomon, The Leftovers, Westworld, De 
dag, in film and TV, in literature much older (Faulkner obviously, but 
also later), ...

·       Seriality as in 'adaptation', 'translation', 'recycling', 
'remix', ... (The Bridge; The Office; Flikken (resp. Ghent, Maastricht, 
Rotterdam) but also e.g. “Serial Shakespeare” as a ‘dramaturg’ of 
contemporary series, Bronfen 2020), ...

·       Seriality in / as social media (podcasts, YouTube vloggers, 
Instagram storytellers, Twitter poetry), ...

·       Seriality and repetition and the tension between offering 
trusted elements vs necessary variation and progression (see seriality 
as a commercial strategy), ...

·       Seriality in comics ("see album x"), ...

·       Seriality in games, ...

·       Seriality and poetry, ...

·       Seriality and genre, ...

·       To be continued ...



Academic articles should be between 5,000 and 6,000 words (references 
and footnotes included) in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian or 
Spanish. All manuscripts are peer- reviewed. JLIC supports textual as 
well as multi-media formatting. All work submitted to JLIC should 
reference and be formatted according to our Author Guidelines. Articles 
may be submitted in Word format. Figures, video and audio files etc. 
should be saved separately from the text.


The deadline for articles is 15 October 2021. Please send an abstract of 
maximum 500 words (in English and, if applicable, also in the language 
of your article, i.e. Dutch, French, German, Italian or Spanish) and a 
list of 5 keywords (in the same (two) language(s)) and a 100-word author 
bio (in English only) to (ronald.geerts /at/ vub.be) by 1 September 2021.


Potential contributors should bear in mind that a two-stage review 
process is envisaged for full essays. In the first stage, articles will 
be reviewed by one of the journal editors. In the second stage, articles 
will be double-blind peer-reviewed by at least one external anonymous 
expert referee.


JLIC considers all manuscripts on the strict condition that:

·       The manuscript is your own original work, and does not duplicate 
any other previously published work, including your own previously 
published work.

·       the manuscript has been submitted only to the Journal of 
Literary and Intermedial Crossings; it is not under consideration or 
peer review or accepted for publication or in press or published elsewhere.

·       the manuscript contains nothing that is abusive, defamatory, 
libellous, obscene, fraudulent, or illegal.

·       the author has obtained the necessary permission to reuse 
third-party material in their article. The use of short extracts of text 
and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited 
basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal 
permission. If you wish to include any material in your article for 
which you do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this 
informal agreement, you will need to obtain written permission from the 
copyright owner prior to submission.

·       No payment from the author(s) will be required.




References:

Lindner, C. 2014. “Foreword.”, Serialization in Popular Culture, edited 
by R. Allen and T. vanden Berg, ix–xi. Routledge.

Bronfen, E. 2020. Serial Shakespeare. An infinite variety of 
appropriations in American TV drama. Univ. of Manchester Press

Denson, S. 2011. ““To be continued...”: Seriality and Serialization in 
Interdisciplinary Perspective”, JLTonline (17.06.2011)

Kelleter, F. (ed). 2017 Media of Serial Narrative. Ohio State Univ. Press

Mittell, J. 2015. Complex TV. The Poetics of Contemporary Television 
Storytelling. NYU Press

Roman Tragedies, 2007-2021, International Theatre Amsterdam, re: Ivo Van 
Hove, https://ita.nl/en/shows/romeinse-tragedies/1569929/


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