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Philip Roth on Screen

Adaptation and Afterlife

Philip Roth on Screen cover

Philip Roth on Screen

Adaptation and Afterlife

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Pre-order. Available 04 Feb 2027
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Description

The first scholarly volume to offer a sustained analysis of cinematic and televisual adaptations of the fiction of Philip Roth, one of the most influential and controversial figures in postwar American literature.

Proceeding from the premise that adaptation is not merely an act of translation but a cultural and interpretive event shaped by its own creative, historical, and ideological contexts, contributors to this volume interrogate how Roth's complex literary voice, themes, and characters have been translated, transformed, or resisted in visual media.

While Roth's novels have been the subject of extensive critical analysis, their screen adaptations – ranging from obscure early films like Battle of Blood Island (1960) to high-profile productions like The Plot Against America (2020) – have received comparatively little attention and mixed success. Contributors explore these adaptations through comparative analyses and close readings to demonstrate the unique challenges and opportunities for adaptation presented by the metafictional structures, narrative unreliability, and provocative explorations of sexuality, Jewish-American identity, and American political life found in Roth's fiction.

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  • PDF/UA-2, 1.4
  • accessibility@bloomsbury.com

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The publication contains no hazards

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Has alternative text descriptions for images

Navigation

  • Page list to go to pages from the print source version
  • Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation
  • All or substantially all textual matter is arranged in a single logical reading order

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: “Philip Roth on Screen”
Derek Graf (University of Oklahoma, USA) and Clayton Dillard (University of Texas as Arlington, USA)
1. Acting Out and Working Through: The Praxis of Adaptation and the Early Fiction of Philip Roth
Noah Jampol (Bronx Community College, USA)
2. Reworking Roth's Repellent in Larry Peerce's Goodbye, Columbus and Ernest Lehman's Portnoy's Complaint
Joeseph Ozias (Central Methodist University, USA)
3. Prestige Incoherence: The Human Stain, Miramax, and the Contradictions of Hollywood Respectability
Clayton Dillard (University of Texas at Arlington, USA)
4. “I am the kind of person who writes this kind of story!”: Reframing Nathan Zuckerman in The Ghost Writer, The Prague Orgy, and American Pastoral
Derek Graf (University of Oklahoma, USA)
5. Philip Roth and the Butcher Shop: Imagination and Slaughter in Indignation
Aimee Pozorski (Central Connecticut State University, USA)
6. “It's Your Problem Now”: Reading the Altered Endings in the HBO Adaptation of Philip Roth's The Plot Against America
Andy Connolly (Hostos, CUNY, USA)
7. Losing Their Touch?: Reimagining Roth's Late Style in Isabel Coixet's Elegy and Barry Levinson's The Humbling
Matthew Shipe (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)
8. Who Narrates, Who Deceives: Narrative Performance in Arnaud Desplechin's Tromperie
Amar Singh and Shipra Tholia (both Banaras Hindu University, India)

Conclusion: Adaptation and Afterlife
Derek Graf (University of Oklahoma, USA) and Clayton Dillard (University of Texas as Arlington, USA)

Afterword
Ira Nadel (Emeritus of University of British Columbia, Canada)

Notes on Contributors
Index

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published 04 Feb 2027
Format Ebook (PDF)
Edition 1st
Pages 240
ISBN 9798216451938
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 1 bw illus
Series Remakes, Reboots, and Adaptations
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Derek Graf

Derek Graf is Assistant Professor of Humanities an…

Anthology Editor

Clayton Dillard

Clayton Dillard is a lecturer in the Department of…

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