Race, Nation and Cultural Power in Film Adaptation

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

• Advances adaptation studies by offering a nuanced critique of the injunction against fidelity criticism
• 16 case studies of film adaptations across 7 chapters, detailing different modes of postcolonial, settler-colonial, and Indigenous film adaptation
• Wide-ranging comparative study, including literary and cinematic texts from Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, Canada, India, the UK, and the US

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.