FOR 1091: Popular Seriality: Aesthetics and Practice

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The Research Unit brings together 15 researchers from the fields of American Studies, German Philology, Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology, Empirical Cultural Studies and Media Studies. From 2010 to 2013, six sub-projects will investigate a narrative format that has become a defining feature of popular aesthetics: the series. The Research Unit addresses questions concerning the wide distribution and broad appeal of series since the 19th century and asks, which new narrative formats have emerged through serialisation. Further questions are: How do series influence the way we perceive and structure social reality? How are serial characters revised when they undergo one or more media shifts? How can we explain the progressively shrinking boundaries between producers and recipients in long running series? Which transformations in the field of cultural distinctions are produced by complex serial narratives, which are increasingly embedded in highbrow lifestyles and canonisation practices? In addition to its base at the University of Göttingen, the Research Unit has sub-projects at the universities of Hannover, Tübingen and Karlsruhe, as well as associated projects at the universities of Bonn and Bern (Switzerland). International fellows are hosted by the Lichtenberg-Kolleg in Göttingen.