The Expanded 'Verse: Serialized Transmediality in Firefly/Serenity

Popular narratives often extend textual content across multiple media platforms, creating transmedia stories. Recent scholarship has stressed the permeability of "the text," suggesting that the framework of a text, made up of paratexts including trailers and DVD extras, must be included in textual analysis. Here, I propose that this notion may be productively coupled with a theory of seriality––we may frame this phenomenon in the filmic terms of a narrative being comprised of transmedia sequels and/or prequels, or in the televisual language of episodes in a series. Through a textual analysis of the multifaceted transmedia narrative Firefly (2002-2003), I argue for a theoretical framework that further destabilizes the traditional text by considering such paratextual works as comic books, web videos, and the feature film Serenity (Joss Whedon, 2005) as narrative continuations within a single metatext that eschews the centrality of any one text over the others in favour of seriality.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Film Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

Carleton University

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Blichert, Frederick Arild

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright © 2014 the author(s). Theses may be used for non-commercial research, educational, or related academic purposes only. Such uses include personal study, research, scholarship, and teaching. Theses may only be shared by linking to Carleton University Institutional Repository and no part may be used without proper attribution to the author. No part may be used for commercial purposes directly or indirectly via a for-profit platform; no adaptation or derivative works are permitted without consent from the copyright owner.

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

10.22215/etd/2014-10487

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:carleton.scholaris.ca:20.500.14718/32379