Literature on the Screen

Film and television often adapt literary works, sometimes advertising literary roots, sometimes disguising these roots with new titles and settings. We will examine such adaptations, comparing them to readings the works themselves might originally have elicited. Our studies will begin with careful readings and culminate in alert viewings. Our goals: to enhance critical thinking, to explore how texts and films represent cultures that produce them, and to learn something about ourselves. The syllabus will include a maximum of four primary texts, such as The Odyssey; a play by Shakespeare, a classic novel by Mary Shelley or Jane Austen, and/or more recent texts such as The Lord of The Rings, One Hundred Years of Solitude, or 'Disgrace' as well as one or more film adaptations of each text.