[24-7] The Dynamic Essence of Transmedia Storytelling

The Dynamic Essence of Transmedia Storytelling (2024) by Barbara Wall 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.