Grievable Lives during the COVID-19 Pandemic: US-American Television, Melodrama and the Work of Mourning

Strehlau, Nelly

dc.contributor.author	Strehlau, Nelly
dc.date.accessioned	2023-12-29T17:36:32Z
dc.date.available	2023-12-29T17:36:32Z
dc.date.issued	2023-12-20
dc.identifier.issn	2083-2931
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/11089/48980
dc.description.abstract	The present article applies Judith Butler’s notion of “grievable life” to reflect on the manner in which selected US-American television series engaged in the work of mourning and memorializing the loss of life in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the aim of noting which lives were deemed “lose-able or injurable” (Butler, Frames 1), and how precarity of life was reflected by fictional narratives that were conceived and produced during the first waves of the pandemic. The article focuses in particular on the way in which network scripted programming operating within the melodramatic convention, namely This Is Us, Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19, incorporated pandemic storylines and which aspects of pandemic reality were highlighted or, conversely, avoided scrutiny.	en
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher	Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego	pl
dc.relation.ispartofseries	Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture;13	en
dc.rights.uri	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
dc.subject	COVID-19 on television	en
dc.subject	Corona fictions	en
dc.subject	US-American television	en
dc.subject	grievable life	en
dc.subject	This Is Us	en
dc.subject	Grey’s Anatomy	en
dc.subject	Station 19	en
dc.title	Grievable Lives during the COVID-19 Pandemic: US-American Television, Melodrama and the Work of Mourning	en
dc.type	Article
dc.page.number	343-360
dc.contributor.authorAffiliation	Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń	en
dc.identifier.eissn	2084-574X
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dc.contributor.authorEmail	strehlau@umk.pl
dc.identifier.doi	10.18778/2083-2931.13.18

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