ABSTRACT
Although the study of literary adaptations on film and TV is becoming more common and indeed more ‘acceptable’ as a feature of English and/or Media Studies in higher education, it is still surrounded by knee-jerk prejudice about the skills such study affords, its impact on the value and place of the literary ‘original’ and the kind of critical approach it demands. Apart from analytical work on narratological perspectives, auteur theory and genre, there is little that unites the study of visual and written narratives in academic work — even though there are clearly shared processes in the study of both. Studying both fictional and filmic sources can be fraught with problems — particularly in making decisions about giving the ‘appropriate’ amount of attention to each medium, and fostering the skills specific to each form; but perhaps the chief problem lies in teasing out our own and others' conscious and unconscious prejudices about this kind of ‘hybrid’ study.
