English 229 - TURNING NOVELS INTO FILMS

Spring
2017
01
4.00
Ambreen Hai
TTh 01:00-02:50
Smith College
41946-S17
SEELYE 301
ahai@smith.edu
"Not as good as the book,” is a frequent response to film adaptations of novels. Adaptation studies, an interdisciplinary field that combines literary and film studies, rejects this notion of “fidelity” (how faithful a film is to its source) and instead reads literature and film as equal but different artistic and cultural forms, where the film may translate, transmute, critique, or re-interpret the novel. This course will look closely and analytically at some paired fiction and film adaptations that focus on issues of imperialism, race, class, and gender. We’ll begin with some classics (Austen’s Mansfield Park, Forster’s Passage to India), move to international postcolonial fiction and film (Tagore’s Home and the World, Ondaatje’s English Patient), and end with U.S. texts about non-white, hyphenated citizens (Lahiri’s Namesake, Stockett’s The Help). We will also read some critical and theoretical essays to frame our key concepts an
Permission is required for interchange registration during the add/drop period only.