This special session, taking its inspiration from the conference rubric “Our Ruling Classes: Culture, Power, Conflict,” invites presentations that explore the dynamics of power differentials in adaptations of any kind. Following David Mamet’s notorious maxim, “Film is a collaborative business—bend over,” it seeks to investigate whether the production and reception of adaptations are marked by inevitable power imbalances, how collaborations in making and making sense of adaptations address these imbalances, and whether collaborations among equals are either possible or desirable.

Sample topics for presentations in this include examinations of celebrated creative partnerships like Rodgers and Hart (or Rodgers and Hammerstein); distributions of power in the posthumous continuations of popular franchises by mystery writers from Agatha Christie to Robert B. Parker; the thematic implications of power differentials in popular genres like the Western and the romantic comedy; the relations between acknowledged and unacknowledged collaborators, or between acknowledged and unacknowledged adaptations; the distribution of power among publicists, reviewers, librarians, and readers; possible alternatives convergence culture offers to market-driven adaptations; the dynamics of interpretation in classrooms marked by power differentials; the threat and allure of human collaborations with Artificial Intelligence; and the more general questions of whether adaptations seek to resolve, expose, or generate conflicts, and whether artistic creation and reception depend for their very nature on unequal partnerships.