東華大學圖書館 |

Language: English

Help

回圖書館首頁

手機版館藏查詢

Back

Switch To: Labeled | MARC Mode | ISBD

The Gang's All Here: Re-Reading Cont...

Jordan, Caitlin.

Linked to FindBook

Google Book

Amazon

博客來

The Gang's All Here: Re-Reading Contemporary American Situation Comedies as Delayed, Ambivalent Bildungsroman.

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	The Gang's All Here: Re-Reading Contemporary American Situation Comedies as Delayed, Ambivalent Bildungsroman./
Author:	Jordan, Caitlin.
Published:	Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, : 2020,
Description:	131 p.
Notes:	Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 81-12.
Contained By:	Masters Abstracts International81-12.
Subject:	American studies. -
Online resource:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=27835859
ISBN:	9798645494254

The Gang's All Here: Re-Reading Contemporary American Situation Comedies as Delayed, Ambivalent Bildungsroman.
Jordan, Caitlin.

The Gang's All Here: Re-Reading Contemporary American Situation Comedies as Delayed, Ambivalent Bildungsroman. - Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2020 - 131 p.

Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 81-12.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgetown University, 2020.

This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.

This thesis explores how contemporary situation comedies, Friends and Will & Grace in particular, can be read as bildungsroman texts. I posit that Friends and Will & Grace function as current bildungsroman works because they foreground narratives of character change, and like the canonical bildungsroman, they possess pedagogical potential for their viewers. Friends and Will & Grace, in part because of their character-centered narratives and open-ended finales, remain associated with cultural images that continually attract younger audiences. Both series traverse generational lines, and they remain culturally relevant with millennial viewers. This thesis poses a reparative reading of contemporary situation comedies; it argues that mass entertainment is capable of conducting productive and powerful cultural work.Chapter One explores the various ways in which the relative histories of the German bildungsroman and the American situation comedy genres work in dialogue with one another. Both forms have demonstrated incredible propensity for development and adaptability in spite of criticisms that they are formulaic and stagnant. Chapter One also discusses that though both the sitcom and the bildungsroman are bourgeois mediums, they have subversive potential that dates back to their relative archetypal texts, I Love Lucy and Wilhelm Meister. Chapter Two then transitions to explore the meaningful ways in which contemporary situation comedies align with the bildungsroman form. As an evolution from their sitcom predecessors, both Friends and Will & Grace have nuanced narrative structures that foreground character development throughout the duration of both series. However, both series also maintain a balance of traditional sitcom formal elements that open them to pedagogical potential because they remain inherently familiar and relatable to audiences.In a turn, Chapter Three highlights the means in which Friends and Will & Grace make adaptations to the bildungsroman form; these adaptations are significant because they help regenerate the bildungsroman form. Important departures that contemporary sitcoms make is that the protagonists are decidedly older than those represented in the canonical bildungsroman, and these characters, because of ensemble casting, pose more opportunities for the future than what was previously depicted in literary bildungsroman. Friends and Will & Grace create new potentialities in terms of gendered and queer representations, and unlike the canonical form, both have endings that are decidedly more open and resistant to closure. Clearly, the formula for both of these series was a successful and impactful one for audiences. I close with a discussion about how reading the sitcom as a bildungsroman is regenerative for both the sitcom and the bildungsroman, and I comment upon how the bildungsroman can continue to develop into the twenty-first century.

ISBN: 9798645494254Subjects--Topical Terms:

2122720
American studies.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Sitcom Studies

The Gang's All Here: Re-Reading Contemporary American Situation Comedies as Delayed, Ambivalent Bildungsroman.
LDR:03992nmm a2200337 4500 001 2271321
005 20201007134658.5
008 220629s2020 ||||||||||||||||| ||eng d
020 $a 9798645494254
035 $a (MiAaPQ)AAI27835859
035 $a AAI27835859
040 $a MiAaPQ $c MiAaPQ
100 1 $a Jordan, Caitlin. $3 3548734
245 1 4 $a The Gang's All Here: Re-Reading Contemporary American Situation Comedies as Delayed, Ambivalent Bildungsroman.
260 1 $a Ann Arbor : $b ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, $c 2020
300 $a 131 p.
500 $a Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 81-12.
500 $a Advisor: Linkon, Sherry.
502 $a Thesis (M.A.)--Georgetown University, 2020.
506 $a This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.
520 $a This thesis explores how contemporary situation comedies, Friends and Will & Grace in particular, can be read as bildungsroman texts. I posit that Friends and Will & Grace function as current bildungsroman works because they foreground narratives of character change, and like the canonical bildungsroman, they possess pedagogical potential for their viewers. Friends and Will & Grace, in part because of their character-centered narratives and open-ended finales, remain associated with cultural images that continually attract younger audiences. Both series traverse generational lines, and they remain culturally relevant with millennial viewers. This thesis poses a reparative reading of contemporary situation comedies; it argues that mass entertainment is capable of conducting productive and powerful cultural work.Chapter One explores the various ways in which the relative histories of the German bildungsroman and the American situation comedy genres work in dialogue with one another. Both forms have demonstrated incredible propensity for development and adaptability in spite of criticisms that they are formulaic and stagnant. Chapter One also discusses that though both the sitcom and the bildungsroman are bourgeois mediums, they have subversive potential that dates back to their relative archetypal texts, I Love Lucy and Wilhelm Meister. Chapter Two then transitions to explore the meaningful ways in which contemporary situation comedies align with the bildungsroman form. As an evolution from their sitcom predecessors, both Friends and Will & Grace have nuanced narrative structures that foreground character development throughout the duration of both series. However, both series also maintain a balance of traditional sitcom formal elements that open them to pedagogical potential because they remain inherently familiar and relatable to audiences.In a turn, Chapter Three highlights the means in which Friends and Will & Grace make adaptations to the bildungsroman form; these adaptations are significant because they help regenerate the bildungsroman form. Important departures that contemporary sitcoms make is that the protagonists are decidedly older than those represented in the canonical bildungsroman, and these characters, because of ensemble casting, pose more opportunities for the future than what was previously depicted in literary bildungsroman. Friends and Will & Grace create new potentialities in terms of gendered and queer representations, and unlike the canonical form, both have endings that are decidedly more open and resistant to closure. Clearly, the formula for both of these series was a successful and impactful one for audiences. I close with a discussion about how reading the sitcom as a bildungsroman is regenerative for both the sitcom and the bildungsroman, and I comment upon how the bildungsroman can continue to develop into the twenty-first century.
590 $a School code: 0076.
650 4 $a American studies. $3 2122720
650 4 $a Multimedia communications. $3 590562
653 $a Sitcom Studies
653 $a Television Studies
653 $a Bildungsroman
690 $a 0323
690 $a 0558
710 2 $a Georgetown University. $b English. $3 1065016
773 0 $t Masters Abstracts International $g 81-12.
790 $a 0076
791 $a M.A.
792 $a 2020
793 $a English
856 4 0 $u http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=27835859