Duke University Press Her Stories: Daytime Soap Opera and US Television History (Console-ing Passions)

Since the debut of These Are My Children in 1949, the daytime television soap opera has been foundational to the history of the medium as an economic, creative, technological, social, and cultural institution. In Her Stories, Elana Levine draws on archival research and her experience as a longtime soap fan to provide an in-depth history of the daytime television soap opera as a uniquely gendered cultural form and a central force in the economic and social influence of network television. Closely observing the production, promotion, reception, and narrative strategies of the soaps, Levine examines two intersecting developments: the role soap operas have played in shaping cultural understandings of gender and the rise and fall of broadcast network television as a culture industry. In so doing, she foregrounds how soap operas have revealed changing conceptions of gender and femininity as imagined by and reflected on the television screen. Review " Her Stories is not just a history of soap operas.... Her Stories is a compelling and exhaustive history of American culture told through soap operas."--Abby Whitaker "H-Soz-Kult" (5/10/2021 12:00:00 AM) "Elana Levine masterfully examines the micro- and macrolevel issues of the American broadcast television industry through the lens of the daytime soap opera. . . . . Through the intertwining of daytime soap operas with the cultural, industrial, and economic aspects of television, Her Stories makes an airtight argument that the history of one is the history of the other."--Laura C. Brown "Journal of Popular Culture" (5/5/2021 12:00:00 AM) "Elana Levine's terrific new book is accessible and authoritative, of interest to anyone concerned with the study of television, and an excellent demonstration of how to handle a complex media studies research project."--Christine Geraghty "Feminist Media Studies" (12/28/2020 12:00:00 AM) "With Her Stories, Levine contributes a valuable refocalization of the history of American television. By using soaps as a through line, Levine provides profound insights into the shifting standards, approaches, and trends that shaped representation and industrial structure over the course of seven decades."--Lauren Wilks "New Review of Film and Television Studies" (4/21/2021 12:00:00 AM) " Her Stories makes a compelling and rigorous case that soap opera indeed plays a leading role in shaping U.S. histories of both gender and television.... Levine's study also, by its very existence, shows that television's gendered past remains largely unsettled and unacknowledged - a search that is still worth pursuing." --Madeline Ullrich "View" (12/1/2020 12:00:00 AM) "Elana Levine is a longtime fan of soap operas, so in Her Stories, she merges personal experience with extensive research to examine how the genre has shaped our understanding of gender and predicted the potential decline of broadcast network television."--Evette Dionne "Bitch Magazine" (3/27/2020 12:00:00 AM) "A fascinating study of the history of soap opera . . . full of wonderful details. . . . Levine makes clear that despite the widespread dismissal of soap operas, they were far from marginal to the history of television, but rather absolutely central."--Kelly Faircloth "Jezebel" (3/18/2020 12:00:00 AM) "Elana Levine has crafted a comprehensive history that is about so much more than daytime dramas. In Levine's research, soap operas are also about cultural impacts, articulations of gender, and the production of media texts as both economic and cultural objects. . . . As soap opera become relics of television past, Her Stories becomes a valuable account of media history."--Linda Levitt "Popmatters" (3/9/2020 12:00:00 AM) " Her Stories offers an important history of American soap operas, from the genre's transition from radio to television in the 1950s and its heyday in the classic network era to its diminished significance in the age of streaming. Elana Levine's rich industrial h