How do we talk about adaptation studies today?

Elliott, Kamilla (2017) How do we talk about adaptation studies today? Literature-Film Quarterly, 45 (2). online np. ISSN 0090-4260

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Abstract

New formal theories were seldom used to vaunt one discipline or medium over another; they were more often used to champion one theory over another: formal hybridities over aesthetic formalisms medium specificity, poststructuralist intertextuality over structuralist narratology, and dialogics over New Critical organic unity. [...]while in the twentieth century literature and film scholars used adaptations to vie for disciplinary territory and power, in the twentyfirst, they have more often used adaptations to compete for theoretical dominion and authority. If in the twentieth century aesthetic formalist scholars recommended that literature and film should occupy separate spheres,1 in the twenty-first, formal and cultural scholars do more than occupy separate spheres: they oppose and at times seek to do away with the other kind of scholarship. Since no critic denies that a full understanding of adaptation requires both and, more than this, that textual and contextual aspects of adaptation intertwine inextricably, this is somewhat perplexing.