ENGL 332-01, Advanced Shakespeare Studies, Fall 2007

Abstract

A critical history of adapting Shakespeare’s plays to cinematic as well as other screens. We will survey films from a wide range of periods, genres, directors, nations, and media in order to appreciate the full span of adaptation, and to complicate conventional notions of “fidelity” to the “original text.” As an advanced course in the English department, students will be expected to evaluate and present scholarly resources to the class on a weekly basis; attend regular screenings of movies as well as watch versions on their own; and complete a substantial final research project that argues for their own interpretation in dialogue with the field’s critical tradition.