Adaptations Now

The anthology Adaptations Now: The Past, Present, and Future of Film and Literature focuses on adaptation studies. It features readings that help students understand ways in which adaptations can move beyond fidelity to the original source material and engages them in a broader, more inclusive mode of thinking about how and why texts change as they become films.

Committed to setting aside judgement and evaluation of film adaptations, the text inspires students to question why filmmakers who adapt material will make certain changes to it based on historic, generic, and authorial context. The progression of articles is designed to explore how why something is different as it changes from form to form and to spark analysis rather than simplistic comparisons of which is better.

Adaptations Now includes insightful articles with references to noteworthy films, as well as original introductions that help to frame the content. With material that balances and serves both its disciplines, the book is suitable for courses in English departments as well as those in communications and media studies.

Brian R. Brems, an assistant professor at the College of DuPage, holds a master’s degree in English with a specialization in film and literature from Northern Illinois University. Professor Brems is particularly interested in learner-centered approaches to teaching, and using film in the composition classroom. He is currently working on various forthcoming articles focusing on horror films and westerns. His presentations include Bruce Springsteen, Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar, and The Individual Working Class Rebellion at the 2016 Film & History Conference and Using Documentary Film in the Composition II Classroom for the Allerton Articulation Conference.