According to Thomas Leitch, adaptation studies aims to provide a “general theoretical account of what actually happens, or what ought to happen, when a group of filmmakers set out to adapt a literary text.” But it is a field that is haunted by some of its own basic assumptions, assumptions, however vociferously denied, from which it has yet fully to liberate itself. As Leitch puts it, we have still not found “the silver bullet that will free adaptation studies from the dead hand of literature, taxonomies and evaluation.” In other words, while most scholars working in the field will dismiss such issues as fidelity, their analyses remain trapped by the same ideas, by the “binary oppositions […] literature versus cinema, high culture versus mass culture, original versus copy” (James Naremore). One of the problems, is, it is claimed, that “much of the writing on and teaching of film adaptations of literary texts has come out of college and university English departments, [a] trend [that] may account for a disproportionate privileging of literature and the author over cinema and collaboration” (Kate Newell). The editors of the Yearbook invite contributions that attempt to take adaptation studies beyond its persistent foundational suppositions, including by examining how adaptations that cross national, linguistic, and cultural borders disrupt existing theories about the way in which texts, films and other cultural products relate and refer to one another.

Contributions in English or in German on any aspect of the debate about the future path of adaptation studies are welcomed from scholars working within the broad field of Germanistik and cognate areas (philosophy, cultural studies, comparative literature, film studies, translation studies). Examinations of adaptation in contexts other than film are also particularly welcome. For the non-thematic section of the Yearbook, we invite, as usual, contributions on current research in the discipline of German Studies, as well as book reviews and conference reports. Please indicate your interest in contributing by February 3, 2012, sending a short email to both editors, providing current or most recent affiliation, proposed article title, and a one-paragraph synopsis. The deadline for submission of completed articles is 30 March 2012. Articles should not exceed 6000 words. Guidelines on the preparation of manuscripts can be found online at: http://germaninireland.org/pdfs/yearbook_policy.pdf

Germanistik in Ireland is a peer-reviewed MLA-listed academic journal.

Editors: Dr. Rachel MagShamhráin (r.magshamhrain@ucc.ie)

Dr. Sabine Strümper-Krobb (strumper.krobb@ucd.ie)