This semester, I’ve had the great opportunity to teach ENGL 220 “Fiction into Film” as a First-Year Seminar, where we read literary texts and watch their cinematic re-imaginings to better understand their unique forms and the adaptation process.
One such approach to adaptation that we learn is what media scholar Karen E. Kline terms the “materialist paradigm,” which asks us as viewers to consider the larger cultural, social, historical, and political contexts that surround the works of art and invariably influence our interpretative process. In our class, we use the materialist paradigm to help us think about the values of the world our texts come from and values of the worlds to which they guide us.
If the goal of the materialist paradigm is to get us thinking about the culture of the larger world, then why not temporarily leave the classroom behind to explore that very world?
So, channeling my inner Ms. Frizzle, I devised a field trip.
***beep beep*** seatbelts, everyone!
After finishing up our third unit, “Genre, Gender, and the Male Gaze,” in which we read Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives and applied feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey’s concept of “the male gaze” to both its 1975 and 2004 cinematic adaptations, we headed on down to the Beach Museum of Art.
There, and with the fabulous Kathrine Schlagek as our guide, we got a tour of the “Voices: Women Artists in the Era of Second Wave Feminism” exhibit to examine how other contemporary creators made work that, like The Stepford Wives, responds to questions of gender and power.
Applying all the fun we had learning about the art and politics of 1960s and 70s at the Beach to our knowledge of the texts and the materialist paradigm, this unit culminated in a visual essay in which students selected an artist and/or artwork featured in the exhibition (or associated with the second wave of feminism) to use as a lens to (re)interpret The Stepford Wives.
Below is just a taste of some the wonderful work students created.
As seen above, Jenny Holzer’s Inflammatory Essays captured students’ interests.
While one student offered a close reading of fear-mongering present in both the artwork and The Stepford Wives, another student re-imagined what Holzer’s Inflammatory Essays might look like if written from the perspective of Joanna, the protagonist of The Stepford Wives.
Another student gravitated towards the evocative form and use of blacklight in Lynda Benglis’s Phantom (above) to shine a light on patriarchal techniques of control in The Stepford Wives.
(Right: Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Your gaze hits the side of my face), 1981; Left: student work)
Interrogations of the male gaze’s objectification of women were also popular, as seen by students’ interest in Barbara Kruger’s graphic works (above) and Sherrie Levine’s Presidential Collages (below).
(Top: Sherrie Levine, Untitled (President 4), 1979 [left]; Sherrie Levine, Untitled (President 5), 1979 [right]; Bottom: student work)
With this project under their belt, our class is even more excited for what’s coming up next. For their final creative project, students are asked to adapt one of the pairings we’ve covered in class into a totally new medium.
“Fiction into Film” is a delight, but “Fiction into Film into Something New Altogether” encourages us to push our creative and critical thinking in exciting and unexpected new directions.
I, for one, can’t wait to see what thoughtful new worlds their work guides us to.
— Hunter Scott, Instructor
K-State English 