Adaptation Studies

URL study guide

https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2025-2026/L_ELMALTK007

Course Objective

After completing this course, students will:demonstrate an understanding of some key developments in critical approaches to adaptations from one medium to another;be able to perform a detailed analysis of the ways in which a text is being adapted to another medium;be acquainted with the practical and theoretical instruments for the analysis of both written and visual texts;demonstrate an understanding of key differences between film and prose fiction as textual media.

Course Content

In this course, we discuss why certain stories keep being retold in different media, what is gained and what is lost in the process of adaptations, who is involved in the process of adaptation, and what the tools are that adaptors have in retelling stories in different media.

Teaching Methods

4 hours seminar per week. Attendance in the course seminars is compulsory.

Method of Assessment

Attendance / Participation / Canvas Postings (25%) Group Presentation (25%) Essay (50%) (Deadline, 3rd week of January 2025)

Literature

Thomas Leitch (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Adaptation Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. (See digital copy at UBVU)

Target Audience

Students in the Master's programme Literary Studies, Track English Literature in a Visual Culture.Students in the Master Educatie in de Taal
- en Cultuurwetenschappen, Track English.

Custom Course Registration

There is a slightly different enrollment procedure for this module. The standard procedure of the Faculty of Humanities has students sign up for (i) the module and (ii) the form of tuition (lecture and/or preferred seminar group). However, for this module the instructor will assign the students to the seminar groups. Therefore, students should sign up for (i) the module and (ii) the lecture, but not for the seminar groups.

Additional Information

Attendance in the course seminars is compulsory. If you are absent at more than 2 seminars (20%), you cannot pass the course. Exceptions may be made in grave personal circumstances. Make sure to inform both your lecturer and the academic advisor in such cases.