Audiences and Adaptation: Self, Story, and the Privilege of Un/Knowing

• Author / Creator

  Friederichsen, Jessica L

• Anthony Giddens writes that self-identity is constructed by the individual from the details of her own life. The individual arranges these details into a reflexive understanding of self that both accounts for her present circumstances and orients her in the social world.

  This process is much like that of textual adaptation: from the available information, the writer selects a cohesive set of details that reflects a current perspective. Using Linda Hutcheon’s theory of adaptation and theories of fandom as starting points, this thesis examines the audiences – knowing and unknowing – of different types of adaptation, including Bridget Jones’s Diary, Coleman Barks’s adaptations of Rumi, narrative videogames, and fanfiction. In these adaptations, the palimpsests of the originals allow the reader to participate in the creation of meaning, and through her interaction with these texts, the reader returns to her own process of identity construction.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Self
  • Adaptations
  • Audience

• Graduation date

  Spring 2012

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3413K

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.