title: Serialised Time: Ever Evolving Temporalities in the Texts we Consume
Creators: name: Henderson, Leah
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: serialised fiction
subject: temporality
subject: serialisation
subject: multiverse

description: This dissertation examines the way serialisation has developed as a narrative form over the past 180 years by analysing three case studies, one each from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries: the serialised novels of Charles Dickens, represented by The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1) and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870); the Lone Ranger multi-media property represented by the eponymous television series which ran from 1949 to 1957, and Marvel Cinematic Universe films (2008 - the present), represented by Infinity War (2018) and Endgame (2019). Each serial thematises time: rather than being a minor consideration, in these works time is a major theme, and the portrayal of time varies according to the medium, genre and time period in which these serials were produced. In analysing these serials, this thesis will demonstrate the integral relationship between technology, the medium of the serial and narratives of temporal experiences. According to Henry Jenkins, media are "cultural systems" that "persist as layers within an ever more complicated information and entertainment stratum" (2006a, p. 14). These serials were selected for analysis because they act as signifiers of the introduction of new media into the popular cultural landscape, which, over the past two centuries, has seen a vast amount of new technological inventions become amalgamated into everyday life. In doing so, these serials are key innovations, exploiting the storytelling capabilities in the new medium. Each serial also enjoyed mainstream popularity during the original distribution of instalments, and their popular cultural status enables an insight into the collective psyche of the time-place in which these serials were produced and intermittently released. While very different from each other in some ways, these texts are not only shaped by the temporality of their serial medium, but they also reflect an interest in time itself. Dickens's serial novels reflect everyday living experiences during the British Victorian era, propelled by the commercialisation of the steam engine and the increased popularity in serialised texts. Dickens's novel narratives portray the cyclicality of everyday routines marked by large events such as marriages, deaths, births, and unsolved mysteries, which moves the narrative forward in a linear fashion. The Lone Ranger is a nostalgic portrayal of the mythical Wild West that contrasts to the experience of the 1950s American suburbia and the electronic era. In order to prolong this nostalgia each episode is on a repetitive loop, following the exact same plot formula so that time appears to be at a standstill. The Marvel films are set in the present digital era, portraying magical superheroes using advanced technology to repeatedly save the world by travelling through time and jumping across universes. This dissertation therefore argues that these key texts are vehicles for discourse in relation to understandings of time and temporality.