Race, Nation and Cultural Power in Film Adaptation - by Gillian Roberts (Paperback)

About the Book

Examines race and nation in postcolonial, settler-colonial, and Indigenous film adaptation.

Book Synopsis

In Race, Nation and Cultural Power in Film Adaptation, Roberts undertakes the first full-length study of postcolonial, settler-colonial and Indigenous film adaptation, encompassing literary and cinematic texts from Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, Indian, British, and US cultures.
A necessary rethinking of adaptation in the context of race and nation, this book interrogates adaptation studies' rejection of 'fidelity criticism' to consider the ethics and aesthetics of translating narratives from literature to cinema and across national borders for circulation in the global cultural marketplace. In this way, Roberts also traces the circulation of cultural power through these adaptations as they move into new contexts and find new audiences, often at a considerable geographical remove from the production of the source material. Further, this book assesses the impact of national and transnational industrial contexts of cultural production on the film adaptations themselves.

Review Quotes

Gillian Roberts' Race, Nation and Cultural Power in Film Adaptation is a welcome addition to the canon of Adaptation Studies. It engages with a range of authors, texts, and locations, beginning in nineteenth-century fiction and concluding with adaptations from within Indigenous cultures, to explore the circulation of race, nation, and cultural power. It will be essential reading for all students of Adaptation Studies for a long time to come.--Deborah Cartmell, De Montfort University