Table Of ContentNarrative Strategies in Television Series
Narrative Strategies in
Television Series
Edited by
Gaby Allrath
and
Marion Gymnich
* Editorial matter and selection © Gaby Allrath and Marion Gymnich 2005
Individual chapters © the contributors 2005
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-9605-3
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First published 2005 by
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library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Narrative strategies in television series / edited by Gaby Allrath and
Marion Gymnich.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4039--9605-3 (cloth)
1. Television serials. 2. Narration (Rhetoric) I. Allrath, Gaby, 1971-
II. Gymnich, Marion.
PN1992.8.S4N382005
791.45'6-dc22 2005043428
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05
Transferred to Digital Printing 2011
Contents
List of Figures vii
Acknowledgements viii
Notes on the Contributors ix
1 Introduction: Towards a Narratology of TV Series 1
Gaby Allrath, Marion Gymnich and Carola Surkamp
Part I Beyond Realism: Authentifying and
Subjectifying Narrative Strategies
2 'Today is going to be the longest day of my life':
A Narratological Analysis of 24 47
Elisabeth Birk and Hanne Birk
3 Exploring Inner Spaces: Authoritative Narratives and Subjective
Worlds in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise 62
Marion Gymnich
4 Animated Cartoons and Other Innovative Forms of
Presenting Consciousness on Screen: The German
TV Series Berlin, Berlin 80
CaroIa Surkamp
Part II Multi-layered Characters, Multi-layered
Narratives
5 'She's filled with secrets': Hidden Worlds, Embedded
Narratives and Character Doubling in Twin Peaks 99
Janine Matthees
6 'This is not happening': The Multi-layered
Ontology of The X-Files 114
KIaudia Seibel
7 Life in Doppelgangland: Innovative Character Conception
and Alternate Worlds in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel 132
Gaby Allrath
v
vi Contents
Part III Narrating Gender/Gendering Narratives
8 Serial Gossip: Gossip as Theme and Narrative Strategy
in Sex and the City 153
Esther Fritsch
9 Ellen Degenarrated: Breaking the Heteronormative
Narrative Contract 168
Dirk Schulz
Part IV (Re)Narrating History
10 History and Biography in Die zweite Heimat: Narrative
Strategies to Represent the Past 191
Sandra Heinen and Stefan Deines
11 History: The Sitcom, England: The Theme Park - Blackadder's
Retrovisions as Historiographic Meta-TV 211
Eckart Voigts-Virchow
Index 229
List of Figures
1.1 Auditory and visual channels in audiovisual media 2
1.2 The series-serial continuum 6
11.1 Narrative structure of TV sitcom 215
11.2 TV sitcom stereotypes 222
vii
Acknowledgements
Needless to say, this book, like any other, would not exist without the
support and encouragement of a large number of people. Among those
to whom we are indebted, we would first like to thank Jon 1. Erickson
for his meticulous proofreading of a substantial part of the manuscript.
We really appreciate his enonnously helpful comments on language and
content. We are also very grateful to Wiebke Blumenthal, Manfred Jahn,
Janine Matthees, Inge Molitor-Nehl, Klaudia Seibel, Carola Surkamp and
Sara B. Young, who read and commented on parts of the volume, both
in the early draft stages and in the final versions.
Many other people have helped in various ways: by stimulating
discussion, by lending us tapes and DVDs, and by bearing with our
obsession with TV series. Thank you to Dorothee Birke, Bertha Chin,
Ulrike Fischer, Stefanie Hoth, Elke KlaaEen, Kathrin Ruhl, Ralph Seibel,
Nadyne Stritzke and Angela Sumner. Our thanks are also due to Ansgar
Niinning, who first introduced us to the study of narrative and encouraged
us to contribute to the project of broadening the horizon of narrative
theory. Our work would have been much more difficult without the
efforts of numerous people who have compiled websites providing episode
guides, transcripts, and other helpful information on TV series - carry
on your good work!
Jill Lake, our editor, and Melanie Blair, both at Palgrave Macmillan,
have been a pleasure to work with. And, finally, we would like to thank
the anonymous reader who recommended our book for publication.
GABY ALLRATH MARION GYMNICH
viii
Notes on the Contributors
Gaby Allrath studied English, German and History at Cologne/Germany,
Hull/UK, and Giessen/Germany. In 2003, she received a PhD from the
University of Giessen for a thesis on a feminist-narratological reconcep
tualization of unreliable narration. Her publications include articles on
narrative theory, gender theory, gender and narrative in television series,
and on the English nineteenth and twentieth-century novel. From
1998 to 2003, she was a teaching and research assistant at the English
department of the University of Giessen. At present, she is working as
a project manager for a marketing agency.
Elisabeth Birk completed her studies of German Language and Literature
and Philosophy with a Maitrise, a State Examination, and a Diplome
d'Etudes Approfondies (Universities of Toulouse and Strasbourg, France,
and Saarbruecken, Germany). From 1999 to 2001, she was in charge of
a research project on the acquisition of writing skills in German and
Japanese at the University of Aachen, Germany. Since 2001 she has been
working as a teaching and research assistant at the Department of
Linguistics in Aachen. Her research interests include philosophy of
language, semiology and media studies. Her PhD project is a comparative
study of rules and samples in Goodman and Wittgenstein.
Hanne Birk studied English, German and Philosophy at the universities
of Freiburg/Germany and Brock/Canada. From 2001 to 2002 she worked
as a teaching and research assistant at the English department of the
University of Giessen, Germany. She has been a research assistant at the
Collaborative Research Centre 'Memory Cultures' (University of Giessen)
since 2003 and is currently working on a PhD on 'remembering' in con
temporary novels by Maori (New Zealand), Aborigine (Australia) and
First Nations (Canada) authors. Her research interests include postco
lonial studies, narrative theory, theories of memory and metaphor
theory.
Stefan Deines is teaching and research assistant at the Philosophy
department of the University of Frankfurt am Main/Germany. His areas
of interest include Critical Theory, the relation between hermeneutics
and poststructuralism, aesthetics, and the philosophy of history. He has
ix
x Notes on the Contributors
co-edited Historisierte Subjekte - Subjektivierte Historie: Zur Verfiigbarkeit
und Unverfiigbarkeit von Geschichte (2003).
Esther Fritsch teaches at the University of Cologne. She studied
in Cologne, Glasgow, and Rochester, New York, and holds a PhD from the
University of Cologne. She has published articles on ethnic writing and
detective novels, and her study Reading Gossip: Funktionen von Klatsch in
Romanen ethnischer amerikanischer Autorinnen was published in 2004.
Her research interests include Native American, African American and
Caribbean literatures, postcolonial theory and cultural studies.
Marion Gymnich studied English, German and Slavic Studies at the
University of Cologne, where she worked as a teaching and research
assistant in the English department from 1994 to 2002. She holds a
PhD in English literature from the University of Cologne. Since 2002
she has been coordinator of the International PhD Programme 'liter
ary and Cultural Studies' at the University of Giessen. She has published
numerous articles on women's writing, postcolonial literature, narra
tive theory, and on the interface between literature and linguistics as
well as a study on concepts of identity in novels by twentieth-century
British women writers. In addition, she has co-edited three collections
of articles.
Sandra Heinen studied English and German Literature and Media Studies
in Cologne/Germany, Reading and Giessen/Germany and is currently
working on a doctoral thesis on authorship in English Romanticism.
She has written essays concerned with narrative strategies in film, tele
vision and literature and co-edited Krisen des Verstehens um 1800 (2004).
Janine Matthees has a Master's degree in English and German literature
and language as well as English and American History from the University
of Cologne. Her research interests include detective fiction, narrative
theory and contemporary television. She is currently working as project
manager at a marketing agency.
Dirk Schulz has a degree in Philosophy, German Literature and English/
American Studies and is currently writing his PhD thesis on Oscar Wilde,
Virginia Woolf and queer theory. He works for gender Inn, an online
database for literature on Gender Studies and Women's Studies, and
gender forum, an electronic journal. In addition, he teaches English/
American literature and culture at the University of Cologne. His fields
