I’ve been writing a chapter  on adaptation for Lawrence Raw forthcoming  edited textbook -  no is not a puff! -  but  I thought I owed it to the students who helped and to Gavin  whose  recent talk  at the  Research Institute seminars  interpreted Gerard Genette’s typology of paratextuality is in understanding new media.    So I thought I’d try out with you this new diagram of the circuit of adaptation.  The name of course derives from Robert Darnton’s circuit of communication,  and while he details particular 18^th-century networks of communication, I’m using this one more generically.  Simone Murray’s model of the adaptation industry includes literary prizes -  see her article ‘Books as media’ in the International Journal of the book.  It’s use is evident when she applies it to Brokeback Mountain.  So similarly  my idea with this diagram is that it is annotated when it is applied to a particular adaptation event.  Many of the adaptations I have looked at have not been literary – and certainly not won prizes.   Traditionally discussion of adaptations has often taken the form of an exploration of how the source text – typically a novel, play, or myth – has been transformed into a new form, principally the film. Sometimes the process of transformation entails the shifting of genre, the elision of storylines, the interpolation of addition of text or abridgement,  and this leads to textual comparison. Adaptation studies has focused on postmodernist notions of intertextuality and hybridity resulting from the circulation of multiple versions of a text.  I wanted to get away from this and focus the discussion far more on the influence of paratextuality on audience’s choice of adaptation.  Unfortunately  the diagram got somewhat cluttered with large  numbers of paratexts  on it, but again they can form annotations  as it is applied.   Adaptation diagram  

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