ENGL 1041 is also offered in Spring 2025
ENGL 1041 is also offered in Fall 2024
ENGL 1041 is also offered in Fall 2023
ENGL 1041 is also offered in Spring 2023
ENGL 1041 is also offered in Fall 2022
ENGL 1041 is also offered in Spring 2022
ENGL 1041 is also offered in Fall 2021
Fall 2018 | ENGL 1041 Section 001: Adaptation: Literature into Film (31885)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- Student Option
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- In Person Term Based
- Class Attributes:
UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
- Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
UMTC, East Bank
Lind Hall 203
- Enrollment Status:
Open (29 of 30 seats filled)
- Also Offered:
- Course Catalog Description:
- Do you refuse to see a film until you've first read the book on which it is based, so it doesn't affect how you imagine the characters? Or does a film inspire you to go back and read the original book, to see what the filmmakers changed or left out? Either way, if you love book covers that say "Now a major motion picture," this is the class for you. "Adaptation: Literature to Film" explores the historical, cultural, and aesthetic contexts in which both literary and cinematic texts are produced and received. We will ask such questions as: When we read a book or a play and then watch an adaptation of it, are we in any sense encountering the "same" text? Does the intention of the author necessarily define the meaning of a text, as readers see it? What other elements enter into the formulation of meaning(s)? How are elements of an inter-textual system always, in some sense, "in dialogue" with each other, and how do different media affect us differently -- whether emotionally, aesthetically, or intellectually? In this class you will learn skills related to interpreting and writing about both literature and moving image media (i.e., film, television, animation, etc.), including concepts and vocabulary specific to each, and your written assignments will include close readings of both books and films.
- Class Notes:
- http://classinfo.umn.edu/?leste101+ENGL1041+Fall2018
- Class Description:
- The word adaptation comes from the Latin adaptare, which means to fit. Within the realm of literary studies, when we analyze how literature has been adapted for the screen, we are analyzing how a text has been reimagined to fit a different a medium. But an adaptation is not only a movement between media - it is also a movement between different historical, cultural, and aesthetic contexts. Therefore, when we study the process of adaptation we must also attend to how a text has been shaped by its context, as well as how it has been reimagined to fit a new context. In this course, we will engage specifically with classic works of literature that have taken on new life in film or television. In 1949, George Orwell published a dystopian novel set 35 years in the future in which a fictitious totalitarian superstate relies on deception, advanced surveillance technology, and revisions of history to maintain tyrannical control of its people. By the time 1984 was adapted for the screen in 1984, did those warnings feel eerily familiar? Might they feel even more familiar today, when politicians disregard dissenting ideas as "fake news," when lies become "alternative facts," and when Alexa is always listening? Similarly, how might the rising popularity of another famous dystopian novel - Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale - be informed by our current political moment, and by the rise of the #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns? And how do we encounter the story differently when Hulu gives us the option to "binge-watch" episodes in the privacy of our own home? In order to address these questions, you will learn to interpret both literary and cinematic texts and to write about these media using key concepts and vocabulary specific to each. In addition to a series of formal writing assignments, this class will involve substantial weekly reading, forum posts, and in-depth class discussions.
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/31885/1189
- Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
- 10 April 2018
ClassInfo Links - Fall 2018 English Classes