Adaptation: The State of the Field, Call for Papers

For the 2006 Popular Culture Association (PCA)/American Culture Association (ACA) conference in Atlanta, Georgia, at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, from April 12th to April 15th.

Adaptation: The State of the Field

It's likely that both literature and film owe a great deal more to the notion of adaptation than practitioners of either discipline are likely to admit. Bakhtin suggested that "European novel prose is born and shaped in the process of a free (that is reformulating) translation of others' works." Literary prose, and perhaps the very idea of literature, he suggests, was developed in an act of adaptation.

Nevertheless, adaptation studies has long been the step-child to both literary studies and film studies. Caught as it is between disciplines it has struggled for years to find legitimacy. Since at least the time of George Bluestone, however, a handful of scholars has worked to understand film adaptation not simply as a way of thinking about literary works that have been adapted to the screen, but in a larger context of mimesis, influence, and intertextuality that dates back to the time of Plato. Recent works by Stam, Naremore, McFarlane and others suggest that Adaptation studies have reached a new level of maturity and demand even more serious scholarly attention. This section of the American Culture Association is looking for papers on any aspect of adaptation. This includes papers treating the adaptation of literature to film and other new media, film and other new media to literature, literature to literature, etc. "Literature" is defined broadly here to include eve!
 rything
 from novels and biographies to children's books and comics.

We are particularly interested in papers that address the state of the field in adaptation as theory, practice, and pedagogy. We hope to bring together adaptation scholars in an effort to begin a more in depth discussion about adaptation, both as it pertains to the limited field of adaptation studies and how it might affect other theoretical approaches.

--How should "adaptation" be defined?

--What makes a "good" adaptation?

--How should adapted works be studied?

--How should adaptation theory be more generally applied to film, literature, and the arts?

--What is the best way to approach adaptations in the high school or college classroom?

Please send 150-250 word abstracts via email to Dr. Dennis Cutchins dennis_cutchins_at_byu.edu

Or by regular mail to

Dr. Dennis Cutchins

English Department

Brigham Young University

Provo, UT 84602

Deadline for Abstracts: November 1, 2005

         ==========================================================
              From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
                        CFP_at_english.upenn.edu
                         Full Information at
                     http://cfp.english.upenn.edu
         or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu
         ==========================================================
Received on Sun Sep 04 2005 - 08:46:45 EDT