Serial Forms

The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 1815-1848

Clare Pettitt

Re-periodises the nineteenth century, challenging conventional disciplinary periodisation
Develops original theories of modernity and seriality whilst remaining close to historical evidence
Questions the concept of the 'book' in this period and rethinks the politics of reception
Offers new and exciting readings of familiar authors such as Scott, Byron, Dickens, and Gaskell

Serial Forms

The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 1815-1848

Clare Pettitt

Description

Serial Forms: The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 1815-1848 proposes an entirely new way of reading the transition into the modern. It is the first book in a series of three which will take the reader up to the end of the First World War, moving from a focus on London to a global perspective. Serial Forms sets out the theoretical and historical basis for all three volumes. It suggests that, as a serial news culture and a stadial historicism developed together between 1815 and 1848, seriality became the dominant form of the nineteenth century. Through serial newsprint, illustrations, performances, and shows, the past and the contemporary moment enter into public visibility together. Serial Forms argues that it is through seriality that the social is represented as increasingly politically urgent. The insistent rhythm of the serial reorganizes time, recalibrates and rescales the social, and will prepare the way for the 1848 revolutions which are the subject of the next book. By placing their work back into the messy print and performance culture from which it originally appeared, Serial Forms is able to produce new and exciting readings of familiar authors such as Scott, Byron, Dickens, and Gaskell. Rather than offering a rarefied intellectual history or chopping up the period into 'Romantic' and 'Victorian', Clare Pettitt tracks the development of communications technologies and their impact on the ways in which time, history and virtuality are imagined.

Serial Forms

The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 1815-1848

Clare Pettitt

Serial Forms

The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 1815-1848

Clare Pettitt

Author Information

Clare Pettitt, Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, King's College London

Clare Pettitt has published widely on nineteenth-century literature and culture. She has taught at the universities of Oxford, Leeds, and Cambridge, and is currently Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature at King's College London.

Serial Forms

The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 1815-1848

Clare Pettitt

Reviews and Awards

"It is a valuable and original investigation of noncanonical serials in the early nineteenth century. It is also a significant contribution to the conversation about form, time, and politics that extends beyond seriality studies." - Robyn Warhol's, MLQ: A Journal of Literary History

"This is both an exciting and a weighty book. It joins extensive archival knowledge with sharp theoretical insight to throw a new light on the emergence of the modern subject ... I am eager for the next installment." - Caroline Levine, Modern Philology

"Pettitt expertly weaves together various strands to show how the growing infiltration of seriality into every aspect of culture forms 'the dynamic processes involved in calibrating a new form of social time'. [...] Serial Forms is a rich, textured study, and there are many byways of the argument not touched upon here that readers will find useful."" - David E. Latané, Victorian Periodicals Review

"In Pettitt's hands, serialization becomes not simply a subject for literary discussion, but is interpreted as a significant cultural movement which informed, and was informed by, the politics and people of the time. The result is an insightful and inspiring collection of chapters that broadens our knowledge of the subject and - appropriately in the spirit of serialization - whets our appetite for the next two books to follow." - Pete Orford, University of Buckingham , Dickens Quarterly

"With its thrilling combination of small details and big insights, this book should attract a readership as wide and grateful as that achieved by Linda Hughes and Michael Lund's The Victorian Serial... I, for one, am eager for the next installment." - Matthew Poland, University of Washington, Seattle, review19