Books by Robert C. Allen

From "Ma Perkins" and "One Man's Family" in the 1930s to "All My Children" in the 1980s, the soap opera has captured the imagination of millions of Americans of all ages. In this volume, Robert Allen undertakes a reexamination of the production and consumption of soap operas through the use of a unique investigatory model based on contemporary poetics and reader-response theory.

Investigates both the cultural specificity of television soap operas and their reception in other cultures, covering soap production and soap watching around the world. This book includes contributions on the nature of soap as a media text and the history of the serial narrative as a form.