In this course about adaptation, students studied why some storytellers are legendary and rife with adaptations (Shakespeare, Alexandre Dumas, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Anne Rice). Using Linda Hutcheon’s A Theory of Adaptation, as well as other Adaptation Studies texts, students asked and answered: Is the book always better? How does a change in form (graphic novel, podcast, theatre, film, television show) alter our experience of the material? How do modern adaptations update these texts while remaining true to the source material? What does the text lose and/or gain in adaptation? How can we compare/contrast the cultural, social, and historical contextual differences and the ways they guide changes in the adapted source material? For the course’s final project, students chose a text and created their own adaptations, which have been compiled on this website.
