Serializing Mass Culture: Popular Film Serials and Serial Structures in the United States, 1910-1940

从1910年到20世纪40年代，电影系列构成了美国和欧洲最流行的电影叙事形式之一。它是在相互竞争的媒体形式的背景下出现的，尤其是在与系列媒体的竞争中获得了动力：电影连续剧借鉴了系列小说、连载期刊出版社、连环漫画或广播连续剧，但它们也反过来影响了这些系列形式。连环交叉参考的复杂结构告诉电影系列挑战建立了互文性或中间性的词汇，因为它们不仅是由竞争和融合的媒介形式和程序产生的，而且在媒介化的大众文化中更为根本地联系在一起。调查了一系列不同类型的电影系列(Fantômas, 1913-14；《宝琳的冒险》，1914；《伊莱恩的冒险》，1914；《444号军官》，1926；《泰山》，1929；《消失的军团》，1931；《飓风快车》，1932；《闪电戈登》，1936/38/40；《迪克·特雷西》，1937/38/39/41等)，子项目考虑了电影系列化的结构和实践（悬念、场景、重复/变化、悬念管理、观众演讲）与系列化大众文化的形象和功能（时尚/消费实践、极权主义/民粹主义的政治化形式、社区建设媒体组合）的交集。因此，子项目并不仅仅关注所选连续剧的叙事，而是对流行连续剧本身的扩张势头感兴趣：以大规模生产的文本外商品形式的衍生产品，电影，广播，漫画等各种连续剧格式的多层次媒体相互联系，以及在政治宣传和经济精简的交叉点上对观众的“连续剧”调整。该项目位于文化理论领域，在方法论上采用了电影符号学、叙事学和话语分析的方法。在研究单元内，该项目的首要功能包括探索系列语义学的叙事和政治意识形态维度，重点关注特定的历史星座和媒体配置。与TP-HG1和TP-HG2一起，这个子项目探索了流行系列性的历史基础，因为它是在整个研究部门进行调查的。它旨在从序列研究的角度重新评估电影材料，此外，调查这些材料对新强调的20世纪美国大众文化历史的影响。它与电影系列的接触为1910年至1940年媒体生态的批判性修订提供了一个出发点（即子项目的历史焦点）。在此过程中，子项目为研究小组内的其他子项目提供了材料和参考资料，这些子项目调查了接下来几十年的媒体历史场所，特别是TP-KV2。该分项目是研究小组在研究股第一阶段进行的关于媒介变化和媒介中断过程的研究。它还在概念上依赖于TP5（将出价作为串行程序的手势）和TP7（关于串行格式的日常整合和粉丝接收）的发现。

The film serial constituted one of the most popular cinematic narrative formats in the United States and in Europe between 1910 and the 1940s. It emerged in the context of competing medial forms and gained momentum especially in competition with serial media: Film serials drew on serial novels, the serialized periodical press, on comic strips or radio serials, but they also influenced these serial formats in return. The complex structures of serial cross-reference that inform the film serial challenge established vocabularies of intertextuality or intermediality, as they were not only engendered by competing and converging medial forms and procedures but were tied up much more fundamentally in a mediatized mass culture. Investigating a range of film serials from various genres (Fantômas, 1913-14; Perils of Pauline, 1914; Exploits of Elaine, 1914; Officer 444, 1926; Tarzan the Tiger, 1929; The Vanishing Legion, 1931; Hurricane Express, 1932; Flash Gordon, 1936/38/40; Dick Tracy, 1937/38/39/41, and others), the subproject considers the structures and practices of filmic seriality (cliffhanger, tableaux, repetition/variation, suspense management, audience address) in their intersections with the figurations and functions of a serialized mass culture (fashion/consumer practices, totalitarian/populist formats of politicization, community-building media ensembles). Thus, the subproject does not focus solely on the selected serials' narratives but is interested in the expansive momentum of popular seriality itself: the spin-offs in the form of mass-produced extra-textual merchandizing, the multilayered medial interlinkages of various serial formats in film, radio, comics, etc., and the "serial" adjustment of audiences in the intersection of political propaganda and economic streamlining. Situated in the realm of cultural theory, the project is informed methodologically by approaches from film semiotics, narratology, and discourse analysis. Within the Research Unit, the project's foremost function consists in an exploration of the narrative and politico-ideological dimensions of a semantics of the serial, focusing on specific historical constellations and medial configurations. Together with TP-HG1 and TP-HG2, this subproject explores the historical foundations of popular seriality as it is investigated in the Research Unit at large. It aims at reassessing the filmic material from the vantage point of seriality studies and, additionally, investigating this material's implications for a newly accentuated history of twentieth-century American mass culture. Its engagement with the film serial offers a point of departure for a critical revision of the media ecology from 1910 to 1940 (i.e., the subproject's historical focus). In doing so, the subproject provides the material and references for other subprojects within the Research Group which investigate the media-historical premises for the following decades, especially TP-KV2. The subproject follows research on processes of media change and media breaks conducted in the Research Unit's first phase by TP3. It also relies conceptually on the findings of TP5 (on gestures of outbidding as serial procedures) and TP7 (on the everyday integration and fan reception of serial formats).