The Dynamic Essence of Transmedia Storytelling challenges many established truths about popular literary classics by presenting an analysis of sixty Korean variations of
The Journey to the West, a set which includes novels and poems, as well as films, comics, paintings, and dance performances dating from the 14th century until today. In contrast to the typical assumption that literary classics like
The Journey to the West are stable texts with a single original, Barbara Wall approaches
The Journey to the West as a dynamic text comprised of all its variations. She argues that all the creators of such variations, from Korean scholars in the 14th century to “boy bands” like Seventeen in the 21st century, participate in the ongoing story world known as
The Journey to the West.
Wall employs literary and quantitative analysis, ample graphic visualizations, and in-depth descriptions of classroom games to find new ways to understand the dynamics of transmedia storytelling and popular engagement with story worlds. Her approach opens new frontiers of intertextual analysis to literary scholars and teachers of literature who seek contemporary methods of introducing world literature to new generations of students.
Barbara Wall, Ph.D. (2014), is Associate Professor of Korean Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Her main research interests are the circulation, translation, and adaptation of literary narratives in Korea, Japan and China.
Acknowledgements List of Tables List of Images List of Graphs A Note to the Reader
Introduction
1
Branding The Journey: Fabricated Authenticity of Translations
2
Valuing The Journey: Fragmentary Wholeness of Adaptations
3
Marking The Journey: Distant Closeness of Adaptations
4
Distilling The Journey: Shallow Depth of Intertexts
5
Initializing The Journey: Abbreviated Complexity of Intertexts
6
Epilogue: Continuing The Journey in a Graphical Sandbox References
Universities libraries with collections in literary studies and East Asia literature; all students, scholars and storytellers who are interested in new ways of visualizing, analyzing and contributing to popular narratives by using digital tools.