Translation and Adaptation in Theatre and Film

This book provides a pioneering and provocative exploration of the rich synergies between adaptation studies and translation studies and is the first genuine attempt to discuss the rather loose usage of the concepts of translation and adaptation in terms of theatre and film. At the heart of this collection is the proposition that translation studies and adaptation studies have much to offer each other in practical and theoretical terms and can no longer exist independently from one another. As a result, it generates productive ideas within the contact zone between these two fields of study, both through new theoretical paradigms and detailed case studies. Such closely intertwined areas as translation and adaptation need to encounter each other’s methodologies and perspectives in order to develop ever more rigorous approaches to the study of adaptation and translation phenomena, challenging current assumptions and prejudices in terms of both. The book includes contributions as diverse yet interrelated as Bakhtin’s notion of translation and adaptation, Bollywood adaptations of Shakespeare’s Othello, and an analysis of performance practice, itself arguably an adaptive practice, which uses a variety of languages from English and Greek to British and International Sign-Language. As translation and adaptation practices are an integral part of global cultural and political activities and agendas, it is ever more important to study such occurrences of rewriting and reshaping. By exploring and investigating interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives and approaches, this volume investigates the impact such occurrences of rewriting have on the constructions and experiences of cultures while at the same time developing a rigorous methodological framework which will form the basis of future scholarship on performance and film, translation and adaptation.

Katja Krebs is Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Bristol, UK.