Dennis Cutchins - Böcker

The Routledge Companion to Adaptation offers a broad range of scholarship from this growing, interdisciplinary field. With a basis in source-oriented studies, such as novel-to-stage and stage-to-film adaptations, this volume also seeks to highlight the new and innovative aspects of adaptation studies, ranging from theatre and dance to radio, television and new media. It is divided into five sections: Mapping, which presents a variety of perspectives on the scope and development of adaptation studies; Historiography, which investigates the ways in which adaptation engages with – and disrupts – history; Identity, which considers texts and practices in adaptation as sites of multiple and fluid identity formations; Reception, which examines the role played by an audience, considering the unpredictable relationships between adaptations and those who experience them; Technology, which focuses on the effects of ongoing technological advances and shifts on specific adaptations, and on the wider field of adaptation.An emphasis on adaptation-as-practice establishes methods of investigation that move beyond a purely comparative case study model. The Routledge Companion to Adaptation celebrates the complexity and diversity of adaptation studies, mapping the field across genres and disciplines.

From All Quiet on the Western Front and Gone with the Wind to No Country for Old Men and Slumdog Millionaire, many of the most memorable films have been adapted from other sources. And while courses on film studies are taught throughout the world, The Pedagogy of Adaptation makes a strong case for treating adaptation studies as a separate discipline. What makes this book unique is its claim that adaptation is above all a creative process and not simply a slavish imitation or reproduction of an 'original.'This collection of essays focuses on numerous contexts to emphasize why adaptations matter to students of literature. It is the first such volume devoted exclusively to teaching adaptations from a practical, teacher-centered angle. Many of the essays show how 'adaptation' as a discipline can be used to prompt reflection on cultural, historical, and political differences. Written by specialists in a variety of fields, ranging from film, radio, theater, and even language studies, the book adopts a pluralistic view of adaptation, showing how its processes vary across different contexts and in different disciplines.Defining new horizons for the teaching of adaptation studies, these essays draw on such disparate sources as Frankenstein, Moby Dick, and South Park. This volume not only provides a resource-book of lesson plans but offers valuable pointers as to why teaching literature and film can help develop students' skills and improve their literacy.

Since films were first produced, adapted works have predominantly borrowed primarily from traditional texts, such as novels and plays. Likewise, the study of film adaptations has also been fairly traditional, rarely venturing beyond a comparison of the source material to its often less revered counterpart. Redefining Adaptation Studies breaks new ground in showing the range of possibilities that transcend the literature/film paradigm. These essays focus on the idea of 'adaptation' and what it means in different socio-political contexts. Above all, this collection shows how cultural and political factors determine the meaning of the term and its potential for developing new approaches to learning.The contributors to this volume look at adaptation in different contexts and develop new ways to approach adaptation, not just as a literature-through-film issue but as something which can be used to develop other skills, such as creative writing and personal and social skills. Aimed at teachers in high schools and universities at the under- and postgraduate levels, this volume not only suggests how 'adaptation' might be used in different disciplines, but how it might improve the learning experience for teachers and students alike.

This collection of essays offers a sustained, theoretically rigorous rethinking of various issues at work in film and other media adaptations. The essays in the volume as a whole explore the reciprocal, intertextual quality of adaptations that permeate the contemporary media experience—from books, to films, to music, to graphic novels. The central argument in this book is that texts in various media always borrow, rework, and adapt each other in complex ways; in addition, the authors in this volume explore the specific forces (social, economic, historical, and authorial) that are at work in particular texts and intertexts. Together, the fourteen essays emphasize that adaptations, in the intersections they create across different media, inhabit a sort of cross-fertilization that is both artistically productive and affirmative of difference. The volume takes as its starting point the assumption that adapters cannot simply “transpose” or transfer one particular text from one medium to another. They must interpret, re-work, and re-imagine the precursor text in order to choose the various meanings and sensations they find most compelling (or most cost-effective); then, they create scenes, characters, plot elements, etc., that match their interpretation. These very relationships are the subject matter this collection seeks to explore. Poststructural theory is an ideal place to begin a rigorous and theoretically sound investigation of adaptation. As adaptation studies adopts a poststructuralist lens and defines this richer notion of intertextuality, some of its key assumptions will change. Adaptation scholars will recognize that all film adaptations are intertextual by definition, mutlivocal by necessity, and adaptive by their nature. This book brings together innovative, original work from fourteen scholars in the fields of adaptation studies, media studies, and critical theory. It includes essays of theoretical concern in adaptation studies as well as essays that engage with specific single and multi-source adaptations (among them, film adaptations of Jane Austen and James Joyce’s fiction, Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, David Lynch’s Lost Highway, and George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead). The volume is divided into three interrelated sections: Fidelity, Ethics, and Intertextuality; Literature, Film Adaptations, and Beyond; and Adaptation as Departure. Overall, it promises to help move the study of adaptation from the fringe of critical studies to the more central role it can and should fulfill in the complex contemporary media landscape.