I'd like to thank...

As of today, I am done with class indefinitely. 

Ah!! 

While there will be many, many more end-of-grad school posts, today I wanted to share the acknowledgments for my thesis: "Its Own Sense of Verisimilitude": The Lizzie Bennet Diaries As a Transhistorical Adaptation of the Semipublic. 

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I would like to thank the professors and faculty at Oregon State for their guidance and support.  I am also grateful to the MA Symposium, the PAMLA and PCA/ACA Conferences where I got to try out many of these ideas.  Thank you to my committee: Bradley Boovy, Jillian St. Jacques, Jon Lewis, and especially to Megan Ward, who so often offered me the vocabulary for what I was trying to articulate.

To the creators whose work inspired this process, I cannot fully express my gratitude. To everyone at Pemberley Digital, who pursued this passion project with excellence and care, and to show runner Bernie Su for your vision, commentary, and responses to my Twitter inquiries.  Most importantly, to Jane Austen whose quietly subversive and effervescently witty work has shaped my life in a myriad of ways.

To all the artists and creators that became a part of my graduate school experience, thank you for making art.  Your work has sustained, invigorated, and fueled me.

To the friends who have supported my work whether in person or hypermediated forms. To my friends and colleagues at Oregon State, and specifically Hannah, Rita, Ethan, Hayley, the Emily’s, Melissa, and more.  To the graduate students from other fields who encouraged me and served as editors: Stephanie Downing and Jordan Cox—I could not have made it through grad school without you.  Thank you to Lois who introduced me to Lizzie Bennet, my kindred spirit Kristina, and dear friend Julia.  My thanks to Hannah Green for her endless enthusiasm about my work.  

I would like to thank my family for all their support.  Mom and dad, thanks for having me read aloud to you at night as a child.  To both of my “squads”…  Jeremiah and Melissa, your humor, encouragement, and love have meant the world to me.  And to my closest friends—Rebekah Gilley and Cami Morrill—thank you for the times you have literally held my hand through this process: you are my stars. 

My sincere gratitude to each of you!

PCA/ACA

Hey!

So last month I got to present a paper at the national conference for the Pop Culture Association / American Culture Association (the PCA/ACA).  The conference was huge and they had a bunch of panels on adaptation.  My paper was part of a panel (along with 3 other great speakers) on "Transmedia Adaptation."  Here's the proposal I wrote last fall:

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“Novel” Media: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Horizontal Adaptation

This paper explores the definition of adaptation as a horizontal, formal move by looking at The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.  This Emmy-award winning, transmedia retelling of Pride and Prejudice set as a vlog in modern day California—told in “real-time” across platforms including YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr—provokes questions about our framework for adaptation.

Until now, most adaptation theory has been defined in the vertical terms of “layering texts” or of “palimpsest.” While the vertical is significant, this paper argues for a definition of adaptation that include the horizontal dimension, that of narrative’s historical continuum.  Bolter and Grusin refer to new media as “refashioned…versions of other media” (Remediation 14). For new media adaptations, they refashion, thereby reclaiming the novels that inspired them.  They repurpose the novel forms of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as fictional autobiographies and epistolary or serialized novels.  This allows us to re-experience both the plot and what was once an emerging, “novel” media.

Just as Austen’s novel was not only arguing for proto-feminism and against classism but also for the very form of the novel, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is not merely making claims about female friendships or stereotyping but that adaptation through transmedia is a valid form, participating in what John Fiske refers to as “culture making” and Robert Stam calls an “ongoing dialogical process.”  As a new avenue for adaptation opens, it sheds light on the horizontal facet of adaptation.

* * * * *

The panel was well-attended by 20 or so people [including my younger brother :] and I made a couple of useful great connections with people already in the field.  Even more exciting to me is that many people said "I'm new to adaptation, but I'm beginning to see it connecting with ________ [this thing they were already doing]."  And that makes me so exciting because I think we are seeing adaptation of one sort or another everywhere right now!  It's so great to watch the field expanding and to feel like a small part of it!




In other news, my thesis is written!  The intro, 2 chapters, and conclusion have been drafted, revised, and re-revised.  Due to some bureaucracy I'm still waiting on a thesis defense date, but I have this 70-page document and I'm amazed it's even done!  Thanks for all the encouragement, friends--8 more weeks!

Hello, I have few bits of graduate school news to share with you...

So, the most significant thing this week is that I turned in the first drafted chapter of my thesis!  It's actually not the first chronological chapter--I'll probably be writing that last; it's a chapter from the body and will probably chapter 3 of 4. It ended up being about 18 pages long and just over 6,000 words.  I can't believe it's there. actually there. on the page.  There were many times this spring and summer where I looked at many aspects of my life and thought "I don't know how I'm gonna make it..."  I definitely wondered how I could possibly do the necessary research and write this chapter.  But here it is.  I don't know if it's any good yet, but it's here :)  I'll be meeting with my adviser next week and hopefully will have some good feedback because...

That chapter is doing double-duty as a conference paper next month, PAMLA.  I've already shared my paper proposal on here, but the official schedule has come out and I now have the link to the comparative media panel I'm on!  I am also super grateful to have won their (small, but significant) graduate student scholarship.  One can kind of wonder if they were accepted to a panel just because there was no one else applying, but this wonderful honor makes me feel like they actually want me there, which is lovely!

This week I also heard back from a similar proposal I made for an adaptation panel at the Pop Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA).  Their national conference is in March and it's in Seattle, plus this particular conference is almost like an academic conference meets a fan convention - so I reeeally wanted to present at this conference.  Well...I'm in!  The panel chair sent such an encouraging email and I'm so looking forward to attending in the Spring.   Here was my PCA/ACA proposal:

“Novel” Media: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Horizontal Adaptation 

 This paper explores the definition of adaptation as a horizontal, formal move by looking at The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.  This Emmy-award winning, transmedia retelling of Pride and Prejudice set as a vlog in modern day California—told in “real-time” across platforms including YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr—provokes questions about our framework for adaptation.  

Until now, most adaptation theory has been defined in the vertical terms of “layering texts” or of “palimpsest.” While the vertical is significant, this paper argues for a definition of adaptation that include the horizontal dimension, that of narrative’s historical continuum.  Bolter and Grusin refer to new media as “refashioned…versions of other media” (Remediation 14). For new media adaptations, they refashion, thereby reclaiming the novels that inspired them.  They repurpose the novel forms of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, such as fictional autobiographies and epistolary or serialized novels.  This allows us to re-experience both the plot and what was once an emerging, “novel” media. 

Just as Austen’s novel was not only arguing for proto-feminism and against classism but also for the very form of the novel, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is not merely making claims about female friendships or stereotyping but that adaptation through transmedia is a valid form, participating in what John Fiske refers to as “culture making” and Robert Stam calls an “ongoing dialogical process.”  As a new avenue for adaptation opens, it sheds light on the horizontal facet of adaptation.

So grateful for every chance I get to dialogue through these intriguing questions.  Here's to many more conversations about Jane Austen :)

Lately I've had Ryan Adam's 1989 on repeat.  I've also been working on a chapter for my thesis on The Lizzie Bennet Diaries...

And it hasn't been lost on me that I'm indulging a full-scale adaptation while writing about adaptation.  I love it!

Adaptception!! 

"Pride and Prejudice joins Twitter"

I've had a second paper accepted to a conference!  This November I'll get to present on the "Comparative Media" panel for the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association in Portland.  This is an exciting move for me as the audience will be made up of both grad students and professors from around the western region.  Here's the proposal:

Pride and Prejudice joins Twitter: Transmedia Adaptation on a Narrative Continuum

This paper explores The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a transmedia retelling of Pride and Prejudice set as a vlog in modern day California.  Across platforms including YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest, this Emmy-award winning web series spent a year reworking the 200-year-old novel in “real-time.”  While the creators simply update certain aspects for the 21^st century—Mr. Bingley is now Bing Lee—other concerns are completely reinterpreted—the Bennet’s entailed estate is now a faulty mortgage; Collins “proposal” is for a job, not a marriage.  Enabling and encouraging audience members to interact with the story through multiple modalities, this transmedia adaptation provokes questions about its relationship to the source material.  While it can be read vertically as palimpsest, a retelling layered on top of the original, might we also consider the transmedia web series as part of storytelling’s historical continuum?  Do the novel and web series share more than a familiar narrative arc and a handful of characters? 

 In the historical moment of their emergence, both of the novel and the transmedia adaptation have been discounted for reasons such as the demographics of those participating, its reproducibility, their creators being perceived as amateurs, etc.  In her landmark Theory of Adaptation, Linda Hutcheon discusses the constructed strata of high and low culture revealing the economic arguments attached when she says, “we tend to reserve our negatively judgmental rhetoric for popular culture, as if it is more tainted with capitalism than high art” (31).  As an example, she notes academia’s tendency to deride the commercial-driven choices of a blockbuster, often ignoring that Shakespeare made similarly calculated artistic moves based on economic principals.  In a similar vein, some scholars may overlook a web series adaptation because it seems “tainted” by the enthusiasm of teenage girls, the advertising that funds it, the commonality of its chosen platforms, or a myriad of other “low culture” tags.    

However, my paper suggests that exploring these social conditions highlights The Lizzie Bennet Diaries as not only an adaptation of plot, character, and setting, but of the historical emergence of a narrative form.   Just as Austen’s novel was not only arguing for proto-feminism and against classism but also for the very form of the novel, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is not merely making claims about female friendships or stereotyping but that adaptation through transmedia is a valid form, participating in what John Fiske refers to as “culture making” and Robert Stam calls an “ongoing dialogical process.”  By placing the interactive web series on a continuum, we recover the emerging status the novel held in the past and are also able to look forward at part of the burgeoning future of narrative form thanks to new media.

I'm in the throes of research and have had some setbacks, but I am really excited to tackle the LBD from the angles of high/low-culture arguments, adaptation of form, and the question of interpreting it vertically/horizontally...  I don't have many conclusions yet, but a lot of intriguing questions!  

And now... back to the work in front of me. :)

This is happening :D

It is based on the paper I wrote last term.  Here is the abstract:

Adaptation Theo(re-) and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

My paper examines the current environment of adaptation studies as applied to new media forms of storytelling.  Evolving from a word vs. image debate, the adaptation theories produced by Robert Stam and Linda Hutcheon are opening a space for dialogic exploration, with Hutcheon suggesting adaptation is about “repetition, but repetition without replication.”  Both suggest that the aim of re-telling a story is not direct translation, but re-interpretation and re-creation, and are interested in viewing these re-creations as palimpsest, investigating how adaptation allows people to see the original work in a new way.

After a review of the shift in adaptation perspectives, this paper turns to look at The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a transmedia retelling of Pride and Prejudice set as a vlog in modern day California.  Across platforms including YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest, this Emmy-award winning web series spent a year re-working the 200-year-old novel in “real-time.”  While completely re-interpreting certain concerns—the Bennet’s entailed estate is now a faulty mortgage; Collins “proposal” is for a job, not a marriage—the creators of this series simply update others.  In this paper and PowerPoint presentation, I argue that far from detracting from the core narrative, these changes were made in order to better explore the question at the core of both Jane Austen’s novel and the web series.

In the final turn of my paper, I examine how centering the climax of the story on their interpretation of the Lydia-Wickham scandal, the creators of this series take Lizzie’s empathetic lesson a step further, extending her repentance to include both her misunderstanding of Darcy and of a fully realized Lydia Bennet.  In doing so, they not only work against stereotype, but also encourage viewers to re-examine their assumption of Pride and Prejudice, creating the type of palimpsestuous learning moment adaptation studies strive for. 

I have tried to pack a lot into my last week before grad school, but a theme emerged. In the last week, I have

...finished rereading Pride & Prejudice - with a certain Fella, I might add

...watched the 2005 adaptation with said Fella 

...finished reading The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet 

...and tonight, introduced a friend to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. 

Yah. I think I made the right decision about what to study. 

Adaptation Week: Emma Approved

Hello!  So... "Adaptation Week" got hijacked earlier - sorry about that.  But I am really excited to jump back in with a few more.  The types of adaptations I am highlighting will be the actual focus of my Master's research.  I've started following quite a few adaptations and keeping tabs on others.  In this digital renaissance, there are so many exciting possibilities in storytelling.  So, back to it:
 
See previously featured adaptations: Mansfield Park and Classic Alice.

Ok, so if you haven't started watching Emma Approved yet, it's time to get on it!  Pemberley Digital's 2nd full-length series recently returned from hiatus and 57-episodes in feels stronger than ever,

Emma Approved is: "A lifestyle brand and documentary of life coach and matchmaker Emma Woodhouse."  When the series begins, Emma & her long-time family friend Alex Knightley have recently formed a subdivision of the "Highbury Group" to focus on match-making, event planning and lifestyle excellence. 

This modern day Emma is no Cher Horowitz. She's more a combination of ruthless Kardashian business skills meets Mary Fiore's event coordination. She is talented but unwilling to compromise one ounce of her vision of the world. She goes to great (questionably illegal) lengths to accomplish her plans. 

This series, even according to its creators, started a little weak for a couple reasons. The biggest issue was fans adjusting to a very different format than it's predecessor, the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Where Lizzie shot vlog-style videos & knowingly posted them on the internet where other characters could find them & viewers could interact with them, Emma Approved videos (minus the Q&A) are told almost "mockumentary" style. While the in-world reasoning for this didn't make much sense, anyone familiar with the story will know that telling Emma the way PD told Pride & Prejudice wouldn't work. Aside from the risk of in-world characters viewing the episodes, it would be highly implausible for high-society Emma Woodhouse to vlog.

One of the stronger parts the show has been Brent Bailey's Alex Knightley.  He is the perfect Knightley - counteracting Emma's (sometimes misplaced) enthusiasm with doses of reality and delivering his lines with a blend of humor and care.

And there's just something to love about a grown man who can still look like a five year old when the occasion calls for it:

They've done rather well with the rest of the casting, too, with highlights being Harriet Smith, Bobby "B-Mart" Martin, Annie Taylor-Weston, and Maddie Bates.  In addition, Frank Churchill has made a few appearances and Jane Fairfax just re-joined Highbury.

Thus far, Emma Approved has taken 2, month-long hiatuses (hiati?).  Though it's sad to go a month long without Monday and Thursday pick-me-ups, both times the team has returned to take their game up a notch.  After January's hiatus, they achieved an Emma Approved-Lizzie Bennet Diaries crossover that just blew me away by combining/replacing the character of Mrs. Augusta Elton with the LBD's Caroline Lee.  Brilliant move!  And following the May hiatus, they had not only the long-awaited reveal of Jane Fairfax but introduced a both in-world and real-world charity drive to fight modern day slavery.  These kind of game-changers combined with the heightened anticipation have made the hiatuses more than worth it!  So, Pemberley Digital, while I hate to be without you, take all the time you need to make it awesome!

The show has had a few detractors - mostly the ones I mentioned early on.  Some things, like Jane Fairfax's character development, will just take time or others like myself, who initially disliked Emma, will have to be won over.  Personally, the two biggest obstacles for me have been the format and certain production choices.  As I mentioned earlier, I understand that vlogging wouldn't work for this story, but full-time surveillance in an office doesn't make sense either.  I also felt that the strength of LBD's transmedia was really missing from the first 1/3 of this story, though I feel that's improved recently with twitter conversations about Knightley offering to carpool with Jane Fairfax and especially with the charity drive. 

My second - and even bigger - frustration has actually been with the costume department for Emma herself.  I understand that she is in event planning and that she's supposed to be trendy.  But more often than not I inwardly cringe at her costumes because they are so not office appropriate.  Short shorts, mini dresses, and midriff just do NOT belong in her world of high-profile clients.  I know they are working with sponsorships from trendy places like mod cloth - which is great!  But even Harriet looks more trendy-but-appropriate than Emma does and honestly I find it distracting.  Okay.  Personal rant over.

Overall, I do love the show, but not nearly as much the Lizzie Bennet Diaries.  That is probably due to the fact that I love Pride and Prejudice far, far more than Emma.  But if the LBD was a 5/5, this is still 4.5.   I really enjoy the interaction between these actors and several of the modernizations they have made with Bobby Martin, Mr. (Senator Scum-bag) Elton, and especially with the Caroline Lee - LBD crossover.

And I can't review it without mentioning that the show has received an extra spark thanks to a very "Emma Approved" real life pairing: Joanna Sotomura and Brent Bailey, who play Emma and Knightley in-world, are in a real-life relationship.

I told you he was perfect. :)

Be sure to check out Emma Approved and in the mean time, I'll leave with a recent video from the stars goofing around on the Tonight Show. 

An understanding

One year ago today, the Lizzie Bennet Diaries released Episode 87: An Understanding:

Two sisters, terribly at odds and remarkably alike, are forced to reconcile in the midst of the imminent release of a sex tape.  After being exploited and lied to, the younger suffers the worst social nightmare of a world in which “the Internet is forever”; the older faces her own failure in understanding and compassion.   
This is Pride and Prejudice.  At least, it is according to Hank Green and Bernie Su, creators of the Emmy-award-winning web series, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.  The poignant scene described above is their interpretation of Elizabeth’s response to the Lydia-Wickham scandal and, at episode 87 of 100, serves as the climax of the adaptation.  The moment also represents the show’s argument both that a 200-year-old story matters to modern YouTube audiences and that layering contemporary issues onto classic texts can lead to more effective readings of those texts.  Austen’s novel says, “Elizabeth is flawed and misunderstands Darcy.  She must resolve this before reconciling her future, both romantically and socially.”  The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (LBD) takes this empathetic lesson a step further, extending Elizabeth’s repentance to include not only her misunderstanding of Darcy but also of a fully realized Lydia Bennet.  

 

* See also MK Wiles' (who plays Lydia) blog where she shares some of her thoughts on this episode and this character.
** If you haven't seen the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, start here.