Beckett’s afterlives

Adaptation, remediation, appropriation

Editors:
Jonathan Bignell
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Anna McMullan
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Pim Verhulst
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Beckett’s Afterlives is the first book-length study dedicated to posthumous reworkings of Samuel Beckett’s oeuvre. Contextualised against the backdrop of his own developing views on adaptation and media specificity, it nuances the long-held view that he opposed any form of genre crossing. Featuring contemporary engagements with Beckett’s work from the UK, Europe, the USA and Latin America, the volume does not approach adaptation as a form of (in)fidelity or (ir)reverence. Instead, it argues that exposing the ‘Beckett canon’ to new environments and artistic practices enables fresh perspectives on the texts and enhances their significance for contemporary artists and audiences alike. The featured essays explore a wide variety of forms (prose, theatre, performance, dance, ballet, radio, music, television, film, visual art, installation, new/digital media, webseries, etc.), in different cultural contexts, mainly from the early 1990s until the late 2010s. The concept of adaptation is broadly interpreted, including changes within the same performative context, to spatial relocations or transpositions across genres and media, even creative rewritings of Beckett’s biography. The collection offers a range of innovative ways to approach the author’s work in a constantly changing world and analyses its remarkable susceptibility to creative responses. Viewed from this perspective, Beckett’s Afterlives suggests that adaptation, remediation and appropriation constitute forms of cultural negotiation that are essential for the survival as well as the continuing urgency and vibrancy of Beckett’s work in the twenty-first century.

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Chapter 1: Beckett’s ‘adaphatroce’ revisited
Chapter 1: Beckett’s ‘adaphatroce’ revisited
Chapter 2: Adaptation and convergence
Chapter 2: Adaptation and convergence
Chapter 3: ‘Imprecations from the Brighton Road to Foxrock Station’
Chapter 3: ‘Imprecations from the Brighton Road to Foxrock Station’
Chapter 5: Passing by, gazing upon
Chapter 5: Passing by, gazing upon
Chapter 6: ‘last state last version’
Chapter 6: ‘last state last version’
Chapter 7: Intermedial embodiments
Chapter 7: Intermedial embodiments
Chapter 8: Beckett, neurodiversity and the prosthetic
Chapter 8: Beckett, neurodiversity and the prosthetic
Chapter 9: Beckett and new media adaptation
Chapter 9: Beckett and new media adaptation
Chapter 10: Opera as adaptation
Chapter 10: Opera as adaptation
Chapter 11: Questioning norms in three Beckettian choreographic projections
Chapter 11: Questioning norms in three Beckettian choreographic projections
Chapter 12: ‘I’ll give you just enough to keep you from dying’
Chapter 12: ‘I’ll give you just enough to keep you from dying’
Chapter 13: Godot noir
Chapter 13: Godot noir
Chapter 14: Deferred dreams
Chapter 14: Deferred dreams
Chapter 15: ‘How can you photograph words?’
Chapter 15: ‘How can you photograph words?’
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