To Be Continued... explores the world's most popular form of television drama; the soap opera. From Denver to Delhi, Moscow to Manchester, audiences eagerly await the next episode of As the World Turns, The Rich Also Weep or Eastenders. But the popularity of soap operas in Britain and the US pales in comparison to the role that they play in media cultures in other parts of the world.
To Be Continued... investigates both the cultural specificity of television soap operas and their reception in other cultures, covering soap production and soap watching in the U.S., Asia, Europe, Australia and Latin America. The contributors consider the nature of soap as a media text, the history of the serial narrative as a form, and the role of the soap opera in the development of feminist media criticism.
To Be Continued... presents the first scholarly examination of soap opera as global media phenomenon.

The editor: Robert C. Allen is James Logan Godfrey Professor of American Studies, and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture and Speaking of Soap Operas, co-author with Douglas Gomery of Film History: Theory and Practice, and editor of Channels of Discourse and Channels of Discourse, Reassembled.

Introduction 1 Doubtless to be continued: A brief history of serial narrative 2 The role of soap opera in the development of feminist television scholarship 3Social issues and realist soaps: A study of British soaps in the 1980s/1990s 4 National and cultural identity in a Welsh-language soap opera 5 Global Neighbours? 6 The end of civilization as we knew it: Chances and the post-realist soap opera 7 "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV": Characters, actors and acting in television soap opera 8 Plotting Paternity: Looking for dad on the daytime soaps 9 "They killed off Marlena, but she's on another show now": Fantasy, reality, and pleasure in watching daytime soap operas 10 "There's a queer in my soap!": The homophobia/AIDS story-line of One Life to Live 11 The consumption of soap opera: The Young and the Restless and mass consumption in Trinidad 12 Not all "soaps" are created equal: Toward a cross-cultural criticism of television serials 13 Our welcomed guests: Telenovel as in Latin America 14 Memory and form in the Latin American soap opera 15 Montezuma's revenge: Reading Los Ricos También Lloran in Russia 16 The melodrama of national identity in post-Tiananmen China 17 All in the (Raghu) family: A video epic in cultural context 18 Sacred serials, devotional viewing, and domestic worship: A case-study in the interpretation of two TV versions of The Mahabharata in a Hindu family in west London