Class Spring 2010: Children’s Literature and Film

English 727: Children’s Literature and Film
June Cummins. Wednesdays, 3:30 to 6:40

In this class, we will explore the at times symbiotic and at other times parasitic relationship between children's books and the cinema. Why and how do certain texts for children get adapted into movies? What happens to these texts when the adaptation occurs? What are audience’s expectations for children’s films as opposed to or in tandem with their expectations of children’s books? How does the heightened emphasis on the visual in movies affect the narratives of literature that began in books and then moved to screens? What role does economics play in the adaptation of children’s books into film? How do other media, such as the Internet, affect the book/film relationship? How do movies serve up visions of childhood? We will examine and question the aesthetic, technical, and most of all cultural aspects of the ever-increasing phenomenon of adapting children’s books into movies.