Adaptation in Contemporary Culture: Textual Infidelities

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Adaptation in Contemporary Culture: Textual Infidelities seeks to reconfigure the ways in which adaptation is conceptualised by considering adaptation within an extended range of generic, critical and theoretical contexts. This collection explores literary, film, television and other visual texts both as origins' and adaptations' and offers new insights into the construction of genres, canons and classics'. Chapters investigate both classic' and contemporary texts by British and American authors, from Jane Austen, Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Dickens to Bret Easton Ellis, P.D James and Sarah Waters.
A diverse range of literary, film and television genres is examined, from romance to science fiction, the Western to the women's picture' and the heritage film to postmodern pastiche. With a thematic focus on key critical paradigms for adaptation studies - fidelity, intertextuality, historicity and authorship - this collection expands the field of adaptation studies beyond its conventional focus on page to screen' adaptations to include film remakes, video games, biopics, fan fiction and celebrity culture.

Reviews

"This is a fresh and exciting collection of essays. Its embrace of different media - ranging from film, television, and performance, through visual documents such as maps and photographs, through to digital technologies - extends our understanding of adaptation as a field of study." - Julie Sanders, Professor of English Literature and Drama, University of Nottingham, UK
"This collection takes an original approach to, and provides a thorough coverage of, themes that have caught the attention of adaptation scholars in recent years. The contributors demonstrate how adapted texts and intertexts are mediations of history and cultural memory. They sample the 'signature' dishes of literary and screen authors and explain why and how they have been served up for consumption in various forms across a proliferating range of media sites. They share with us the individual and collective pleasures and frustrations of being a fan. In their hands, adaptation becomes a defining act in the production and consumption of postmodern culture." - Dr. Gillian Allard, Head of Centre for Research and Enterprise in Creative & Cultural Industries, Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries, University of Glamorgan, UK
"Scholars of English literature, drama, film, and other media consider the adaptation of a work of literature as a translation and interpretation, which is a cultural practice that exemplifies key trends in postmodern culture. The themes are remaking fidelity, after-images, reproducing the past, and afterlives. Among specific topics are stage adaptation and the problem of presence; Charlotte's website: media transformation and the intertextual web of children's culture; the 2005 Bleak House as an example of historicizing the classic novel; and Jane Austen, adaptation, and celebrity."-Eithne O'Leyne, BOOK NEWS, Inc.
Review in Screen, Summer 2010
Reviewed in The Year's Work in English Studies, Volume 90

Author Bio

Rachel Carroll is Principal Lecturer and Subject Group Leader in English Studies at the University of Teesside, UK.