The Politics of Adaptation Media Convergence and Ideology

In the 21st century, the parallel movements of media convergence and globalization have reshaped our understanding of media boundaries. The rise of digital culture has increased our access to narrative media, while also providing new ways of engaging with them. But, at the same time, global media corporations have intensified their power over these media and the channels through which they reach us. This book brings together a broad range of scholarly approaches to the challenges and opportunities of adaptation studies in this new era. Together, they focus on the political and ideological tensions that underlie and shape processes of adaptation and cultural transformation in the age of media convergence.

Dan Hassler-Forest works as Assistant Professor of English Literature at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. He has published books on comics, superheroes, and transmedia storytelling, and co-edits a book series on media convergence and participatory culture for Amsterdam University Press.

Pascal Nicklas teaches Comparative and English Literature at Mainz University, Germany, and is research group leader in the Institute of Microscopic Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University Medical Centre Mainz. His research focuses on the aesthetics of adaptation in intermedial and cultural contexts, as well as in terms of cognitive poetics. He has published widely on European literature and media.

List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Notes on the Contributors
Introduction; Dan Hassler-Forest and Pascal Nicklas
PART I: ADAPTING THE PAST: POLITICS AND HISTORY
1. History as Adaptation; Thomas Leitch
2. Voyeuristic Revisionism?: (Re-)Viewing the Politics of Neo-Victorian Adaptations; Caterina Grasl
3. Cultural Nostalgia, Orientalist Ideology, and Heritage Film; Antonija Primorac
PART II: ADAPTING AUTHORSHIP: POLITICS AND CONVERGENCE
4. Emerging from Converging Cultures: Circulation, Adaptation, and Value; Timothy Corrigan
5. Transmediality and the Politics of Adaptation: Concepts, Forms, and Strategies; Jens Eder
6. Bastards and Pirates, Remixes and Multitudes: The Politics of Mash-Up Transgression and the Polyprocesses of Cultural Jazz; Eckart Voigts
PART III: ADAPTING POSTCOLONIALISM: POLITICS AND RACE
7. 'Bergman in Uganda': Ugandan Veejays, Swedish Pirates, and the Political Value of Live Adaptation; Lindiwe Dovey
8. Yvonne Vera's Butterfly Burning and the Politics of Adaptation in African Literature; Aaron Bady
9. Michael Jackson and Afrofuturism: HIStory's Adaptation of Past, Present and Future; Erik Steinskog
PART IV: ADAPTING NATIONALITY: POLITICS AND GLOBALIZATION
10. The End of the Hollywood 'Rip-Off'? Changes in the Bollywood Politics of Copyright; Lucia Krämer
11. Adapting Tasmania: Terrorizing the Past; Imelda Whelehan
12. Laibach's Subversive Adaptations; Darko Štrajn
PART V: ADAPTING GENRE: POLITICS AND POPULAR CULTURE
13. Game of Thrones: The Politics of World-building and the Cultural Logic of Gentrification; Dan Hassler-Forest
14. You Think You Know the Story: Novelty, Repetition, and Lovecraft in Whedon and Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods; Gerry Canavan
15. Stop/Watch: Repressing History, Adapting ; Jacob Brogan
PART VI: ADAPTING THE BODY: POLITICS AND GENDER
16. Biopolitics of Adaptation; Pascal Nicklas
17. 'Restrained Glamor': Joe Wright's Anna Karenina, Postfeminism, and Transmedia Biopolitics; Monika Pietrzak-Franger
Index