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Great Adaptations: The Art and Ethics of Re-Writing - CED00230C

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  • Department: Centre for Lifelong Learning
  • Module co-ordinator: Miss Sarah Wride
  • Credit value: 10 credits
  • Credit level: C
  • Academic year of delivery: 2023-24

Module summary

This module will enable students to critically analyse and to creatively respond to a range of narrative adaptations — of various genres and forms, by diverse Anglophone writers from the nineteenth century to the present. Students will closely read each text in relation to its cultural and historical contexts and relevant critical debates (in the light, for example, of gender and postcolonial theory). They will explore theories of adaptation, the ethics and logistics of ‘translating’ a text’s generic and formal features — including its plot, characterisation, perspective, style, and intertexts — across media, and the adaptation industry.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 1 2023-24

Module aims

This module will enable students to critically analyse and to creatively respond to a range of narrative adaptations — of various genres and forms, by diverse Anglophone writers from the nineteenth century to the present. Students will closely read each text in relation to its cultural and historical contexts and relevant critical debates (in the light, for example, of gender and postcolonial theory). They will explore theories of adaptation, the ethics and logistics of ‘translating’ a text’s generic and formal features — including its plot, characterisation, perspective, style, and intertexts — across media, and the adaptation industry.

Module learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of the module, students will be able to:

  • Engage with key theoretical debates relating to adaptation, and with the processes by (and main contexts in which) Anglophone writers and production teams have adapted texts from the nineteenth century to the present.
  • Write critically about or produce an excerpt from an adaptation.
  • Apply critical thinking, research, and communication skills.
  • Explore the relationship between critical and creative writing.

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Essay : Critical essay or creative writing piece		 N/A 100

Special assessment rules

None

Reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Essay : Critical essay or creative writing piece		 N/A 100

Module feedback

The tutor will give regular individual verbal and written feedback throughout the module on work submitted. The assessment feedback is as per the university’s guidelines with regard to timings.

Indicative reading

  • Bram Stoker Dracula, ed by Roger Luckhurst (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)
  • Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat Dracula, BBC 1, 1-3 January 2020
  • Hester Bradley, Imelda Whelehan Screen Adaptation: Impure Cinema (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010)
  • Linda Hutcheon A Theory of Adaptation, 2nd edn (London: Routledge, 2012)
  • Jacqueline Goldfinger, Allison Horsley Writing Adaptations and Translations for the Stage: A Guide and Workbook for New and Experienced Writers (London: Routledge, 2022)


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University is constantly exploring ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. Where appropriate, the University will notify and consult with affected students in advance about any changes that are required in line with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.