Her Stories: Day Time Soap Opera and US Television History
Mentor 1
Elena Levine
Location
Union 250
Start Date
27-4-2018 1:00 PM
Description
“Her Stories: Daytime Soap Opera and US Television History”
Professor Levine’s project is centered around the daytime soap opera and its long history. Her book-in-progress, Her Stories, examines the genre as central to US TV history. The project seeks to understand the influence of this long-running genre on the economic and cultural place of American television, and the relationship between the genre and its audiences. One part of my position was preparing the book manuscript for publication and another was organizing a collection of source materials on the subject to be shared with a wider audience. First, I helped to compile the bibliography for the final book manuscript. Another part of my work dealt with organizing soap opera magazines, dated from the 1980s through the 2000s. Through WorldCat, I searched for collections of these magazines at libraries in the US, and found that there is no collection as complete as Prof. Levine’s. Professor Levine is working on organizing and cataloging these thousands of magazines to help others access some of the resources she used. Upon completion, others would be able to come in and explore this huge source of information. People would be able to learn about the history of this genre and continue to explore it. Through the magazines, researchers can learn about the programs and the ways they were promoted, but also can see audience responses (such as in letters to the editor) and criticisms of stories and business decisions. It is also possible to see differences in how different magazines discussed soap operas and how the programs changed over time. My work was just the beginning of cataloging and making sense of this large collection. By participating in this position over the summer, I was able to witness the many needed sources that have to be complied when writing a book for a broad audience.
Her Stories: Day Time Soap Opera and US Television History
Union 250
“Her Stories: Daytime Soap Opera and US Television History”
Professor Levine’s project is centered around the daytime soap opera and its long history. Her book-in-progress, Her Stories, examines the genre as central to US TV history. The project seeks to understand the influence of this long-running genre on the economic and cultural place of American television, and the relationship between the genre and its audiences. One part of my position was preparing the book manuscript for publication and another was organizing a collection of source materials on the subject to be shared with a wider audience. First, I helped to compile the bibliography for the final book manuscript. Another part of my work dealt with organizing soap opera magazines, dated from the 1980s through the 2000s. Through WorldCat, I searched for collections of these magazines at libraries in the US, and found that there is no collection as complete as Prof. Levine’s. Professor Levine is working on organizing and cataloging these thousands of magazines to help others access some of the resources she used. Upon completion, others would be able to come in and explore this huge source of information. People would be able to learn about the history of this genre and continue to explore it. Through the magazines, researchers can learn about the programs and the ways they were promoted, but also can see audience responses (such as in letters to the editor) and criticisms of stories and business decisions. It is also possible to see differences in how different magazines discussed soap operas and how the programs changed over time. My work was just the beginning of cataloging and making sense of this large collection. By participating in this position over the summer, I was able to witness the many needed sources that have to be complied when writing a book for a broad audience.
