Globalization, transnational capital, and the rise of new media have contributed to an environment in which works are continually adapted into an ever-expanding variety of media across time and space. In this course students will explore adaptation as both product and process—a process that not only transforms “source” texts into “adaptations” (very often across media boundaries), but also impacts how we read, interpret, and evaluate them. While addressing the broader phenomenon of adaptation, the focus of the course will primarily be on adaptations of literature into film and television through close analysis of selected literary works and their corresponding adaptations. Students will also consider “adaptation” as a critical term in its relationship to other related concepts used in literary and cultural studies (such as “translation,” “parody,” “intertextuality,” “remediation,” “fan fiction,” “transmedia franchise,” etc.), and will be offered opportunities to put their knowledge of theories of adaptation into practice. 

 

---

1. To provide students with a set of tools, concepts, and practices that will facilitate the close formal analysis of literary and cinematic texts.
2. To teach students to think critically about the transformative process of adaptation—the choices that must be made when adapting texts across media, historical, and cultural contexts—and to consider the different motives for adapting specific texts.
3. To develop both an awareness of how adaptation transforms our processes of reading and experiencing texts (i.e. Linda Hutcheon’s “palimpsestuous intertextuality”), and a critical understanding of how the products of adaptation are evaluated (via the concept of “fidelity,” etc.).
4. To assess the relationship between “adaptation” and other critical concepts used in literary, cultural, and media studies (in particular, the concept of “transmedia storytelling”).

 

---

100% coursework

Assessment Task	Weighting
Participation (including attendance, in-class discussion and activities, etc.)	20%
Scene analysis	20%
Group presentation	20%
Final in-class exam	40%
Total	100%

 

---

Primary texts and films may include:  

-Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice  

-Eileen Chang, Lust, Caution  

-Haruki Murakami, Drive My Car 

-Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl  

-Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fleabag  

Other theoretical readings may be assigned and uploaded to Moodle. Film adaptations will either be screened in class or be made available in the library for group/independent screenings.