Adaptations

The Centre for Adaptations at De Montfort University has been at the forefront of the development of Adaptation Studies as a field of interdisciplinary research on an international scale. It is the only one of its kind and brings together DMU academics from Drama, English, History, Film Studies, Music and New Media. 

Adaptations at De Montfort University hosts the journal Adaptation (Oxford University Press) and the book series Adaptation Histories (Bloomsbury), and was the founding home of the Association of Adaptation Studies with colleagues in the USA, Australia and Europe. The first of the Association’s annual conferences was hosted here in Leicester in 2006 (funded by a Leverhulme award), followed by international conferences in Atlanta, Amsterdam, Berlin, Istanbul, London, Oxford, Birmingham, and St Augustine. The Centre’s own seminars and conferences held at De Montfort University have ranged from Andrew Davies: The Screenwriter as Adaptor (2016) to Adaptation Returns (2017). Screenwriter Andrew Davies, the Centre’s Honorary Professor, donated his extensive archive to the Centre in 2015, providing one of several opportunities to undertake doctoral research drawing on De Montfort University’s archive collections. Subsequent AHRC-funded awards (Transforming Middlemarch, 2022-23, Remixing the Classics, 2022-23, and Adapting Jane Austen for Educational and Public Engagement, 2024-25) have drawn upon, and added to our networks and our adaptations archives (including the papers of BBC Education and Adult Learning producer Angie Mason and writer/producer Sue Birtwistle (Lady Eyre) in 2024). The Centre has awarded several PhDs, among them on adaptations of King Lear, novelisations of The Merchant of Venice, unfilmable adaptations, adaptations of Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Cinderella, hacker adaptations, adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, post-colonial adaptations, James Bond adaptations, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, adaptations of the Three Musketeers, and adapted video games. Our students have gone on to a wide range of careers, including lectureships in the universities of Bangor, De Montfort, and Nottingham, impact adviser at Oxford University, Executive Director, The Ken Ludwig Company, and Dean of Humanities and Creative Industries, Petra Christian University, Indonesia.

Contact

The Centre for Adaptations at De Montfort University invites applications to the Midlands 4 Cities Doctoral Training Partnership. Members of the Centre for Adaptations and their research interests are listed below. 

Professor Deborah Cartmell – djc@dmu.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor of English, Director of the Centre for Adaptations
Areas of expertise: Shakespeare, adaptation theory, film adaptation in the era of sound, the author on film 

Professor Siobhan Keenan – skeenan@dmu.ac.uk Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature
Areas of expertise: Shakespeare and adaptation 

Dr Bethany Layne-Hodgkins – bethany.layne@dmu.ac.uk
Areas of expertise: Biofiction, adaptation, appropriation, Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath 

Professor Claire Monk – cmonk@dmu.ac.uk Professor of Film & Film Culture
Areas of expertise: Heritage cinema and adaptation, fanworks as adaptation, production studies,
E. M. Forster, Merchant Ivory Productions, adaptations and critical reception 

Professor Kenneth Morrison – kmorrison@dmu.ac.uk
Areas of expertise: Adaptation, politics and history

Dr Elinor Parsons – eparsons@dmu.ac.uk
Areas of expertise: Shakespeare and film 

Laraine Porter – lporter@dmu.ac.uk Reader in Cinema History
Areas of expertise: Silent cinema and music adaptation 

Dr James Russell – jrussell@dmu.ac.uk
Areas of expertise: Hollywood and adaptation 

Professor Justin Smith – justin.smith@dmu.ac.uk
Areas of expertise: Classic novel adaptations for television, the process of screen adaptation, adaptation production histories, adaptation and digital humanities