We are pleased to announce that Imelda Whehelan and Deborah Cartmell,
authors of Interpreting Shakespeare On Screen, Adaptations: From Text
to Screen, Screen to Text, and the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to
Literature on Screen will be our guest speakers at the upcoming
conference on Film Adaptation at the University of South Britanny.
You will find the call for papers below.

De la page blanche aux salles obscures : l'adaptation
cinématographique dans le domaine anglophone
 From the Blank Page to the Silver Screen: Film Adaptations in the
English-Speaking World

Université de Bretagne Sud (University of South Brittany)
Lorient, France
June 8-10, 2006

For a long time, adaptations have been evaluated according to their
"faithfulness" to the "original" work, but the limits of this
approach have become increasingly apparent, as Brian McFarlane has
shown: "Fidelity is obviously very desirable in marriage; but with
film adaptations, I suspect playing around is more effective."
Adapting literature to the big screen implies revision, if not
transformation. Rather than simply denigrating film adaptations as
impoverished versions of their literary counterparts, we would like
to examine adaptation as a meeting point of two modes of expression,
whose very confrontation is enlightening. Whether by strengthening
new themes in a classic novel (India in Mira Nair's Vanity Fair),
appropriating a well-known tale for a modern audience (Baz Luhrmann's
Romeo + Juliet), creating new aspects of the original story (the
romance in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula), or feeding on the success
of a best-seller (The Bourne Identity, L.A. Confidential), film
adaptations tell us something about ourselves, our society, and our
understanding and appetite for literary works. They also reveal
alternative facets of familiar literary works, which may explain the
uncanny hold that adaptations have on the public. Topics might include:

Theorization of film adaptation
Specific examples of film adaptations of novels, short stories, and
plays
Intertextuality in film adaptations
Critical reception of film adaptations
Postcolonial and gender-related transformations of literary works
Sociological approaches to adaptation: what does adaptation reveal
about the adaptors and their public?
Stylistic concerns: are some authors more easily adaptable than others?
Genres and film adaptation
History of film adaptation
Hierarchy and authority
The attraction of adaptation for the film industry: the economic side

This list is not exhaustive.
Papers will be accepted in English or French, and the proceedings
will be published by the Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Send
abstracts of approximately 300 words and a brief CV by December 17th,
2005 to shannon.wells-lassagne_at_univ-ubs.fr and
ariane.hudelet_at_wanadoo.fr.

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Received on Fri Dec 16 2005 - 13:10:48 EST