To Be Continued... explores the world's most popular form of television drama; the soap opera. From Denver to Delhi, Moscow to Manchester, audiences eagerly await the next episode of As the World Turns, The Rich Also Weep or Eastenders. But the popularity of soap operas in Britain and the US pales in comparison to the role that they play in media cultures in other parts of the world.
To Be Continued... investigates both the cultural specificity of television soap operas and their reception in other cultures, covering soap production and soap watching in the U.S., Asia, Europe, Australia and Latin America. The contributors consider the nature of soap as a media text, the history of the serial narrative as a form, and the role of the soap opera in the development of feminist media criticism.
To Be Continued... presents the first scholarly examination of soap opera as global media phenomenon.
Biography
The editor: Robert C. Allen is James Logan Godfrey Professor of American Studies, and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture and Speaking of Soap Operas, co-author with Douglas Gomery of Film History: Theory and Practice, and editor of Channels of Discourse and Channels of Discourse, Reassembled.
