Serial Austen. Mashingups with Zombies
Abstract
Jane Austen sells. She sells in all possible ways, her novels have been adapted for the cinema and the stage, they have been rewritten as comics and graphic novels. Jane austen is a cultural icon. The interest in her life is so strong that many biographies have been written in order to recover new facts and details. The places where she has lived and the places depicted in her novels have become tourist sites for literary pilgrims. Austen is a cross-over phenomenon, with regency costume balls recreated in her name and an endless proliferation of her works in all media. My essay will investigate Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009), a mash-up novel which has become a real cultural phenomenon of the last decade and will demonstrate how it can be considered a serial narrative. If as Henry Jenkins asserts, seriality implies the unfolding of a story over time through a process of “chunking” (that is creating meaningful parts of the same story) and of “dispersal” (that is breaking the story into more parts and in more genres and media), mash-ups seems to do this. Austen’s story remains as a “story hook” which pushes the reader to come back to different products for a continuation of the same story. So, if on the one hand, seriality occurs within the same text, the story-telling of Austen’s stories across genres and media is part of a seriality process.
Downloads
References
Austen, Jane and Grahame-Smith, Seth, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Philadelphia, Quirk Books, 2009.
Aylmer, Janet, In the Footsteps of Jane Austen through Bath to Lyncombe and Widcombe, Bath, Copperfield Books, 2003.
Battaglia, Beatrice and Saglia, Diego (eds), Re-Drawing Austen: Picturesque Travels in Austenland, Napoli, Liguori, 2004.
Beard, Pauline, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”, Interface the Journal of Education, Community and Values, 9.4 (2009), http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/article.php?id=61.
>Birk, Hanne, and Gymnich, Marion (eds.), Pride and Prejudice 2.0. Interpretations, Adaptations and Transformations of jane Austen’s Classics, Gottingen, Vandenroeck and Ruprecht, 2015.
Butler, Nancy and Petrus, Hugo, Pride and Prejudice, New York, Marvel, 2013.
Byrne, Paula, Jane Austen and the Theatre, London, Hambledon, 2002.
Coldwell, Andrea, “Imagining Future Janeites: Young Adult Adaptations and Austen Legacy”, Persuasions On LIne, 35.1 (2014), http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol35no1/coldwell.html.
>Dew, Benjamin, “Rewriting Popular Classics as Popular Fiction: Jane Austen, Zombies, Sex and Vampires”, in C. Berbarich (ed.), The Bloomsbury Introduction to Popular Fiction, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2015: 282-295.
Doody, Margaret, Jane Austen’s Names: Riddles, Persons, Places, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2015
Dow, Gillian, “Uses of Translation: the Global Jane Austen”, in G. Dow, C. Hanson (eds.), Uses of Austen: Jane Austen’s Afterlives, New York, Palgrave, 2012: 154-174.
Edwards, Anne-Marie, In The Steps of Jane Austen, [Second Edition] Ashurst, Southampton, Arcady Books, 1985.
Francus, Marylin, “Austen Theraphy: Pride and Prejudice and Popular Culture”, Jane Austen Society of North America, 30.2 (2010), http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol30no2/francus.html.
>Fullerton, Susannah, Jane Austen and Crime, Madison, Wisconsin, Jones Books, 2006
Galperin, William H., The Historical Austen, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.
Gammie, Ian & McCulloch, Derek, Jane Austen's Musica. The musical world of Jane Austen of Jane Austen, St Albans, Herts, Corda Music, 1996.
Gay, Penny, Jane Austen and the Theatre, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Giffin, Michael, Jane Austen and Religion: Salvation and Society in Georgian England, New York, Palgrave, 2002.
Giovagnoli, Max, Transmedia Storytelling: Imagery, Shapes and Techniques, Milano, ETC Press, 2011.
Hale, Shannon, Austenland, London, Bloomsbury, 2007.
Hale, Shannon, Midnight in Austenland, London, Bloomsbury, 2012.
Hayes, M., “Why Jane Austen Made it a Movie”, in B. Battaglia (ed.), Jane Austen. Oggi e ieri, Ravenna, Longo, 2002: 5-22.
Holbert Tucker, George, A History of Jane Austen's Family, Phoenix Mill, Sutton Publishing, 1998.
Honan, Park, Jane Austen. Her Life, New York, St. Martin Press, 1988.
Hutcheon, Linda, A Theory of Adaptation, Hoboken, Taylor and Francis, 2006.
Jasper, Grace M., “Appropriating Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and the Feminist Possibilities of Adaptation”, Thesis, 2016, http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1863&context=scripps_theses.
>Jenkins, Elizabeth, Jane Austen. A Biography, London, Indigo, 1996.
Jenkins, Henry, Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide, New York, New York University Press, 2006.
Johnson, Claudia, Jane Austen’s Cults and Cultures, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2012.
Julie, Sanders, Adaptation and Appropriation, London, Routledge, 2006.
Kipling, Rudyard, “The Janeites”, Hearst’s International, MacLean's, and the StoryTeller Magazine, May 1924, collected in Debits and Credits, New York, Doubleday Page, 1926.
Kirkham, Margaret, Jane Austen, Feminism and Fiction, London, The Athlone Press, 1997.
Knox-Shaw, Peter, Jane Austen and the Enlightenment, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009 [First Edition 2004].
Laski, Marghanita, Jane Austen and her World, London, Thames and Hudson, 1969.
Le Faye, Deirdre, A Chronology of Jane Austen and her Family, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Le Faye, Deirdre, Jane Austen, The World of Her Novels, London, Frances Lincoln, 2003.
Lynch, Deirdre, Janeites: Austen’s Disciples and Devotees, Princeton, Princeton UP, 2000.
Macdonald, Gina and Macdonald, Andrew F. (eds.), Jane Austen on Screen, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008 [First Edition 2003].
March Mia, Finding Colin Firth, Gallery Books 2013
Mason Smith, Maggie, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”, Publications paper 71 (2013), http://tigerprints.clemson.edu/lib_pubs/71).
>McLuckie, Marcia, Jane Austen. TV and Film Locations Guide, Bath, Jane Austen Centre, 2006.
Mirmohamadi, Kylie, The Digital Afterlives of Jane Austen, Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2014.
Mullen, John, What Matters in Jane Austen? Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved, London, Bloomsbury, 2012.
Murphy, Jacob, “Remix Culture and the Literary Mashup”, Alluvium (2013), https://www.alluvium-journal.org/2013/03/26/remix-culture-and-the-literary-mashup/.
>Murray, Simone, The Adaptation Industry: the Cultural Economy of Contemporary literary Adaptation, London, Routledge, 2012.
Nelson, Camilla, “Jane Austen… Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem”, Adaptation, 6.3 (2013): 338-354.
Nokes, David, Jane Austen. A Life, London, Fourth Estate, 1997.
Page, Norman, The Language of Jane Austen, Oxford, Blackwell, 1972.
Page, Ruth and Brownwen, Thomas (eds.), New Narratives: Stories and Story-telling in the Digital Age, Lincoln, U Nebraska P., 2011.
Parrill, Sue, Jane Austen on Film and Television, Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland & Company, 2002.
Potter, Alexandra, Me and Mr Darcy, New York, Ballantine, 2007.
Potter, Tiffany, “Historicizing the Popular and the Feminine: the Rape of the Lock and Pride Prejudices and Zombies”, in Potter T. (ed.) Women, Popular Culture and the 18th century, Toronto, U of Toronto P., 2012: 5-24.
Raff, Sarah, Jane Austen’s Erotic Advice, New York, Oxoford UP, 2014.
Raw, Lawrence and Dryden, Robert (eds,) Global Jane Austen: Pleasure, Passion, and Possessiveness in the Jane Austen Community, New York, Palgrave, 2013.
Roberts, Amy, “Why Pride Prejudice and Zombies is the Perfect Feminist Data Movie”, Bustle, 22 October 2015, https://www.bustle.com/articles/118922-why-pride-and-prejudice-and-zombies-is-the-perfect-feminist-date-movie.
>Rutven, Andrea, “Pride and Prejudice and Post-Femininist Zombies”, in Alonso M., J. Bello Mota, A. de Bejar, M. L. Tornado (eds.) Weaving New perspectives together, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars, 2012: 155-170.
Ryan, Marie Laure, “Transmedial Storytelling and Transfictionality”, Poetics Today 34:3 (2013), 361-388.
Sales, Roger, Jane Austen and Representations of Regency England, London, Routledge, 2003.
Stoke, Myra, The Language of Jane Austen: a Study of some Aspects of her Vocabulary, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1991.
Suk Yang Chwe, Michael, Jane Austen game Theorist, Princeton, Princeton UP, 2013.
Sutherland, Kathryn, Jane Austen's Textual Lives: From Aeschylus to Bollywood, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005.
Tomalin, Claire, Jane Austen, New York, Vintage Books, 1999.
Troost, Linda and Greenfield, Sayre (eds), Jane Austen in Hollywood, Lexington, The University Press of Kentucky, 2007.
Tuite, Clare, Romantic Austen Sexual Politics and the Literary Canon, Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 2002.
Voigts, Virchow Eckart (ed.), Janespotting and Beyond. British Heritage Retrovisions since the mid-90s, Tubingen, Gunter Narr Verlag, 2004.
Voigts, Virchow Eckart, “Pride and Promiscuity and Zombies or, Miss Austen Mashed Up in the Affinity Spaces of Participatory Culture”, in P. Nicklas and O. Lindner (eds.) Adaptation and Cultural appropriation, London-New York, De Gruyter, 2012: 34-56.
Wells, Juliette, Everybody’s Jane: Austen in the Popular Imagination, New York, Continnum, 2011.
Wiltshire, John, Recreating Jane Austen, Cambridge, Cambrdge UP, 2001.
Yaffe, Deborah, Among the Janeites: a Journey through the World of Jane Austen Fandom, Boston, Mariner, 2013.
Copyright Notice
You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work, and to adapt the work. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
