English Literature taster session: Adaptation - Interrogating Austen's novels onscreen and onstage

Jane Austen's much-loved novels are very frequently adapted. However, this lecture focuses on the ways that adaptations can aim to critique rather than uphold the worldview a source text would seem to represent.

The session will begin by setting adaptations of Austen's fiction in historical context and as part of a normally conservative heritage industry. We will then turn to focus, by contrast, on two bold re-readings: first, Patricia Rozema's 1999 film Mansfield Park, which offers a feminist, post-colonial critique of Austen's novel; second, a 2018 reinterpretation of Pride and Prejudice by German theatre collective Thermoboy FK, a dreamlike reimagining of Austen performed by an all-male cast. Through these examples, the lecture investigates adaptation's ability to reveal gaps and silences in its source material and find new ways to reach a contemporary audience.

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