BADaptations

full name / name of organization: 
Constantine Verevis / Monash University, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
contact email: 

BADaptations

Eds. I. Q. Hunter (Du Montfort University, UK) and Constantine Verevis (Monash University, Melbourne).

In the (not so distant) past, "adaptation studies" typically focused on the translation of books, especially "classic" and canonised literary novels, into films. As Thomas Leitch points out in his essay (and subsequent book) "Twelve Fallacies of Adaptation," this approach has meant that adaptation studies often takes fidelity to a literary source as the most appropriate method for analysing adaptations. Although the question of fidelity continues to dominate popular reviews of film adaptations, Leitch's essay (and other recent scholarship on adaptation) now routinely works with a much broader definition of adaptation, whereby it is no longer taken to mean simply novel-into-film (with the further assumption that "the novel is better") but also engages with films derived from such non-literary sources as comic books, electronic games, and theme park rides. Emphasising intertextuality over fidelity, such work locates adaptation within a range of long established industry practices that recycle and serialise narratives in the form of remakes, sequels, television series, novelizations, videogames, and the like. Recently, I. Q. Hunter has taken up the idea that "adaptation is a rational commercial strategy for commodifying textual material by disseminating it across numerous media" in order to consider the seemingly marginal phenomenon of the exploitation film as a mode of adaptation. This final approach overlaps with the notion of "BADaptation," a concept employed to engage with and challenge those approaches to adaptation and remaking that routinely employ a rhetoric of betrayal and degradation, of "infidelity" to some idealized original. The proposed collection of essays takes up the idea of BADaptation to ask the following questions: Is a film adaptation intrinsically BAD? Are all film adaptations BADaptations of some more authentic artifact? And what happens when one adapts a "bad object"? Does this result in a BADaptation, or a "GLADaptation"? The editors seek proposals for contributions to the volume that deal with either BAD adaptations of "good" objects, or GOOD adaptations of "bad" objects.

This proposed edited collection seeks theoretical/overview pieces and case studies that deal with the idea of "bad versions" (adaptations, remakes and so on) of pre-existing (good or bad) material (however defined).

General enquires and proposals are welcomed by the editors at:
iqhunter@dmu.ac.uk OR
Con.Verevis@monash.edu

The deadline for submissions – title, 250-word abstract and 100-word bio – is 30th November 2011.

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