This course will study the phenomenon of adaptation-that is, the translation of literary work into film. By reading narrative against film, and film against narrative, students will gain new analytical perspectives on these artistic forms. We will interest ourselves in the kinds of visual and narrative problems the act of adaptation presents for the filmmaker and screenwriter, as well as the way in which shifts in historical, political, social, and technological context can complicate their projects. Students will take up these issues in two ways. First, they will write and present to each other analytical essays about particular questions in film adaptation that present themselves when a novel or story is read alongside its film version. These presentations will alternate with sessions in which students will adapt a scene or section of a chosen narrative (preferably, one that has not yet been adapted for film) for presentation and critique. Note: this is not a course in screenwriting. These adaptations are exercises meant, as with the critical work, to engage actively the analytical processes set in motion by the juxtaposition of text and film. Texts and films studied may include Emma, Clueless, Dracula, Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now, Beloved, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and selected shorter works by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Junot Diaz, and Raymond Carver. At the end of the semester, students will work in teams of two on a final project: a longer screenplay adaptation. The tutorial format will require students to meet in pairs with the professor for 75 minutes once a week; each student will produce either a critical analysis or adaptation every other week, and comment on their partner's work in alternate weeks. The last two weeks of the semester will be devoted to the longer adaptation. Students in the course will be graded on the portfolio model: they will receive brief comments and a check, check-plus, or check-minus for their work in each week's meeting, and at mid-term a more thorough written evaluation and a letter grade representing their performance up to that point. Prerequisite: 100-level English course, except 150. A prior Criticism course is suggested. Enrollment limited to 10. (Criticism)