Postcolonial Screen Adaptation and the British Novel (Paperback)

This book brings film adaptation of literature to bear on the question of how nineteenth-century imperial ideologies of progress continue to inform power inequalities in a global capitalist age. Not simply the promotion of general betterment for all, improvement in the British colonial context licensed a superior "master race" to "uplift" its colonized populations--morally, socially, and economically. This book argues that, on the one hand, film adaptations of nineteenth-century novels reveal the arrogance and coercive intentions that underpin contemporary notions of development, humanitarianism, and modernity--improvement's post-Victorian guises. On the other hand, the book also argues that the films use their nineteenth-century source texts to criticize these same legacies of imperialism. By bringing together film adaptation, postcolonial theory, and literary studies, the book demonstrates that adaptation, as both method and cultural product, provides a way to engage with the baggage of ideological heritage in our contemporary global media environment.

Author:

Vivian Y. Kao

Publisher:

Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date:

Oct 16, 2021

Number of pages:

252 pages

Language:

English

Binding:

Paperback

ISBN-10:

3030545822

ISBN-13:

9783030545826