Beyond the Threshold: Textual Transcendence and Transmedia Narratives

In the past few decades, complex narrative experiences such as The Matrix or Lost have increasingly undermined the movie (or the TV show) considered as a text-object, culturally perceived as closed and complete. Among the labels provided to describe these new forms of narrative, Henry Jenkins’ “transmedia storytelling” had a strong impact on film and media studies. Starting from Jenkins’ definition and throughout its developments, the notion of transmedia storytelling has addressed, more or less explicitly, Gérard Genette’s research on textual transcendence. While scholarly literature on transmedia storytelling features various references to Genette’s best known works about transtextuality (Palimpsests and Paratexts), almost no reference can be found to Genette’s last researches (especially The Work of Art), in which the concept of transcendence seems to be fully theorized. In the first two parts I will discuss both the advantages and disadvantages of studying transmedia narratives in light of Genette’s theoretical framework. In particular, I will show the advantage of re-considering Genette’s best known concepts through his recent categories of “immanence” and “transcendence.” In the third part I will discuss how “modes of transcendence” prove to be particularly useful for the study of the dimension of time in the contemporary media landscape.