Theorizing Adaptation

From intertextuality to postmodern cultural studies, narratology to affect theory, poststructuralism to metamodernism, and postcolonialism to ecocriticism, humanities adaptation studies has engaged with a host of contemporary theories. Yet theorizing adaptation has been declared behind the theoretical times compared to other fields and charged with theoretical incorrectness by scholars from all theoretical camps. In this thorough and groundbreaking study, author Kamilla Elliott works to explain and redress the problem of theorizing adaptation. She offers the first cross-disciplinary history of theorizing adaptation in the humanities, extending back to the sixteenth century, revealing that until the late eighteenth century, adaptation was valued for its contributions to cultural progress, before its eventual ― and ongoing ― marginalization by humanities theories. The second half of the book offers ways to redress the troubled relationship between theorization and adaptation. Ultimately, Theorizing Adaptation proffers shared ground upon which adaptation scholars can debate productively across disciplinary, cultural, and theoretical borders. "Asking why adaptation has been seen as more problematic to theorize than other humanities subjects, and why it has been more theoretically problematic in the humanities than it has been in the sciences and social sciences, Theorizing Adaptation seeks to both explicate and redress "the problem of theorizing adaptation" through a metacritical history of theorizing adaptation from the late seventeenth century to the present, a metatheoretical theory of the relationship between theorization and adaptation in the humanities, and analysis of the rhetoric of theorizing adaptation. The history finds that adaptation was not always the bad theoretical object that it increasingly became from the late eighteenth century: in earlier centuries, adaptation was celebrated and valued as a means of aesthetic and cultural progress. Tracing the falling fortunes of adaptation under theorization, the history reveals that there have always been dissenting voices valorizing adaptation. Adaptation studies can learn from history not only how to theorize adaptation more positively, but also to consider "the problem of theorization" for adaptation. Metatheoretical analysis of what theorization and adaptation are and how they function in the humanities finds that they are rival, overlapping, inimical processes, each seeking to remake culture -- and each other -- in their images. It is not simply the case that adaptation has to adapt to theorization: rather, theorization needs to adapt to and through adaptation. The final section attends to the rhetoric of theorizing adaptation, analyzing how tiny pieces of rhetoric have constructed adaptation's relationship to theorization, and turning to figurative rhetoric, or figuration, as a third process that has can mediate between adaptation and theorization and refigure their relationship. Moreover, particular rhetorical figures can redress particular problems in adaptation studies and open new ways to theorize adaptation studies studies Provided by publisher Asking why adaptation has been seen as more problematic to theorise than other humanities subjects, and why it has been more theoretically problematic in the humanities than in the sciences and social sciences, Theorizing Adaptation seeks to both explicate and redress "the problem of theorising adaptation" through a metacritical history of theorising adaptation from the late sixteenth century to the present, a metatheoretical theory of the relationship between theorisation and adaptation in the humanities, and analysis of and experimentation with the rhetoric of theorising adaptation. Adaptation was not always the bad theoretical object that it increasingly became from the late eighteenth century: in earlier centuries, adaptation was celebrated and valued as a means of aesthetic and cultural progress Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction: The Problem of Theorizing Adaptation 12 PART I: THEORIZING ADAPTATION 22 1. Histories of Theorizing Adaptation 24 2. Theorizing Adaptation in the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries 44 3. Theorizing Adaptation in the Twentieth Century 100 4. Theorizing Adaptation in the Twenty-First Century 150 PART II: ADAPTING THEORIZATION 184 SECTION I. RETHEORIZING THEORIZATION 186 Introduction 186 5. Redefining Definitions 190 6. Resetting Taxonomies 212 7. Rethinking Theoretical Principles 234 SECTION II. REFIGURING THEORIZATION 254 Introduction 254 8. The Rhetoric of Theorizing Adaptation 256 9. Refiguring Adaptation Studies 276 Conclusion: Adaptation and Theorization 314 Notes 320 Bibliography 328 Index 368 The first cross-disciplinary history of theorizing adaptation, Theorizing Adaptation covers the full history of the topic and finds shared ground upon which adaptation scholars can dialogue and debate productively across disciplinary, cultural, and theoretical borders.