Jason Mittell's talk

Our contemporary media landscape might be called the era of heightened seriality. In this talk, Professor Jason Mittell explores how serial storytelling has pervaded both film and television narrative, considering what formal elements define contemporary seriality, and how seriality is forged by industrial and viewing practices. By understanding the centrality of seriality within contemporary film and television, Mittell argues we can see serial practices as extending even beyond narratives, structuring how we think of various elements of media today, including authorship, fandom, and branding.

Jason Mittell is Professor of Film & Media Culture and American Studies at Middlebury College. He is the author of Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture, (Routledge, 2004), Television and American Culture (Oxford University Press, 2010), and Complex Television: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling (NYU Press, forthcoming), and and the co-editor of How to Watch Television (NYU Press, 2013). He maintains the blog Just TV.