Description: Can revolution unfold in chapters? Seriality has long shaped how we read, think, and act; Peter Hitchcock explores how it structures both knowledge and social change.
From Karl Marx's decision to publish Capital in serial form to contemporary adaptations in manga and graphic novels, Seriality and Social Change examines how serialization both democratizes knowledge and shapes the very process of social transformation. Peter Hitchcock delves into the paradox of the serial: while it can expand access to radical thought, it can also impose structural limits, slowing or containing the revolutionary potential it seeks to unleash. Through a sweeping analysis that links literature and political economy, Hitchcock explores how serialized narratives frame, sustain, or even hinder movements for change. Does seriality mirror the mechanics of capitalism, or can it be a tool for subverting them? Engaging with this question across genres and forms, Seriality and Social Change invites readers to rethink how revolution is told and imagined over time.Review Quotes: "Hitchcock offers a dense, deliberate, theoretically informed close reading of the work in question, one that aims to keep in place or enhance its complexity rather than to explain it away . . . This is a formidable work of postcolonial theory that deserves a close and careful read by anyone with an interest in transnational literature."--Praise for "The Long Space" "Jonathan Naito, Comparative Literature Studies"