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Reel Hope: Literature and the Utopian Function of Adaptation

Hall, Alexander Charles Oliver

Abstract Details

2013, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English.
There exists an intersection between utopian studies and adaptation studies that does not seem to have been explicitly stated in any of the scholarship in either field: the adaptation of texts into filmed productions affords adapters (filmmakers, etc.) the opportunity to emphasize what they see as the utopian dimensions of source texts for potentially critical purposes, which equals a utopian function of adaptation in and of itself. Critics, therefore, can use utopia as a hermeneutic in the analysis of adaptations. In doing so, it may be found that the utopian function of adaptation sometimes forgoes the dominant themes of the source text almost entirely, appropriating the text as a pulpit from which to engage in social critique. In fact, adaptations can stray from their source texts in scores of ways, thereby cultivating utopian potential, and these deviations will often bring about the usual assertions that “the book was better,” largely because the adaptation is not (for it cannot be) the source text. In adaptation studies scholarship, these assertions come from those aptly referred to as fidelity critics because they hold fidelity to the source text in the highest regard, but fidelity criticism has in recent years become to adaptation studies what formalism is to literary studies—passe. More recently, the idea of intertextuality between, for instance, a film adaptation and the novel it adapts, has been privileged in adaptation studies, specifically using a poststructural theoretical approach. Since adaptations cannot be judged by their fidelity to their source texts (which are multilayered and thus offer many different interpretations), we might instead judge them by their particular readings of their sources, and how those readings might be valuable as works of art that operate in dialogue with or build upon their sources. Using utopia as an interpretive device, my contention is that the various “readings” of source texts—manifested as adaptations—are influenced by the utopian imaginations of their adapters, a concept drawn from the work of Ernst Bloch. Aspects of the empirical world are critiqued via adaptations, and are thus the specific foci of the utopian function of adaptation.
Willie Harrell, Jr. (Advisor)
Donald Hassler (Committee Member)
Babacar M'Baye (Committee Member)
Paul Haridakis (Committee Member)
Leonne Hudson (Committee Member)
174 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Hall, A. C. O. (2013). Reel Hope: Literature and the Utopian Function of Adaptation [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1372450824

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Hall, Alexander. Reel Hope: Literature and the Utopian Function of Adaptation. 2013. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1372450824.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Hall, Alexander. "Reel Hope: Literature and the Utopian Function of Adaptation." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1372450824

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)