Dr Jamie Sherry

Job: Reader in English

Faculty: Arts, Design and Humanities

School/department: School of Humanities

Address: De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH

T: +44 (0)116 207 8181

E: jamie.sherry@dmu.ac.uk

W: https://www.dmu.ac.uk

 

Personal profile

Dr Jamie Sherry is Reader in English at DMU, and currently fulfills the role of Programme Leader for English. He teaches the theories and practices of adaptation, and is module leader for ENGL3102 Writing Adaptations.

He is co-Chair of the Association of Adaptation Studies, co-organising their annual, international conference which has run for 12-years.

He is also co-editor for the Journal of Screenwriting (Intellect) and sits on the steering committee for the Screenwriting research Network.

Jamie has published research on the creative and industrial processes of radical adaptation through production and screenwriting, and will publish Film Adaptation (Columbia University Press) in 2018.

Research group affiliations

Centre for Adaptations

Publications and outputs

Publications

Film Adaptation: Cinema’s Reimaginings and Remediations. Columbia University Press, 2019 (forthcoming).

Psychomania (Devil’s Advocates). Auteur Publishing, 2019 (forthcoming).

“Closing visual codas: Infidelities, Diversions and Radical Practices in Adaptations,” in J. Nelmes and J. Selbo (eds.) Last Pages, Last Shots. Routledge, 2018 (forthcoming).

“Screenwriter, Auteur and Literary Adaptor - Questions of Authorship in Lynne Ramsay’s Expressionist Screenplays,” in J. Nelmes and J. Selbo (eds.) Women Screenwriters – An International Guide. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

“Adaptation through Screenwriting: Theories of Process and Practice in the Adapted Screenplay,” in D. Cartmell and I. Whelehan (eds.) Teaching Adaptations. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

“Degenrification in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker: The Science-Fiction Novel Transformed into Art-Film Parable.” In I.Q. Hunter & T. Van Parys (eds.) Science Fiction across Media: Adaptation/Novelization. Gylphi, 2013.

“Paratextual Adaptation: Heart of Darkness as Hearts of Darkness via Apocalypse Now.” In D. Cartmell (ed.) A Companion to Literature, Film, and Adaptation. Blackwell, 2012.

Articles

“The Pleistocence protagonist: An evolutionary framework for the analysis of film protagonists.” Kira-Anne Pelican, Jamie Sherry and Robert Ward. Journal of Screenwriting 7.3 (Intellect, 2016).

“Adaptation Studies through Screenplay Studies: Theoretical Mutuality and the Adapted Screenplay.” Journal of Screenwriting 7.2 (Intellect, 2016).

“’Working for the building’: An Interview with Ben Wheatley.” Ballardian (2016). Available at: www.ballardian.com.

“Unique visual complexities: A review of Grande Anarca - adapted from J.G. Ballard’s short story.” Ballardian (2008). Available at: www.ballardian.com.

“The Screenwriters' Guru Guide.” Writers Guild Magazine UK Writer (Winter, 2005). 

Field Trip: An interview with Syd Field.” Writers Guild Magazine UK Writer (Summer, 2005).

Conference papers 

"Is it future, or is it past?" Over-writing, Infidelity and Multiple Sources in Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)." The 12th Association of Adaptation Studies Annual Conference, Amsterdam University, Netherlands (October, 2018)

“The 16-hour Film as TV Series: Twin Peaks: The Return (2017).” The 10th Screenwriting Research Network (SRN) International Conference, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan (September, 2018)

Plenary Lecture: "Closing visual codas: Infidelities, Diversions and Radical Practices in Adaptations." Last Pages, Last Shots Conference, Université de Caen, Normandie, France (October, 2017)  “Production as Performance: Radical Adaptation Practices and Adapted Screenplay Process.” The 11th Association of Adaptation Studies Annual Conference, Oxford University, UK (September, 2016) 

“Andrei Tarkovsky’s Screenplays: authorship, adaptation and anti-literary zones.” The 9th Screenwriting Research Network (SRN) International Conference, Leeds Beckett University & Leeds University, UK (September, 2016).

“The Performance of Production: Radical Adaptation Practices and Adapted Screenplay Process in Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013).” Adaptation and the Metropolis: 10th Association of Adaptation Studies Annual Conference, Institute of English Studies, University of London, London, UK (September, 2015).

“Remediating Production: Radical Adaptation Practice and Adapted Screenplay Process.” Screenwriting: Text and Performance: The 8th Screenwriting Research Network (SRN) International Conference, University of London, UK (September, 2015).

“Paratextual Mimesis: The Film ‘Making-of’ Documentary as Mimetic Adaptation.” Adaptations and Multiplicities: The 9th Annual Conference of the Association of Adaptation Studies, Flagler College, St. Augustine Florida, USA (September, 2014).

“Pasolini/Sade – Visual Abjection and Authorship in Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom.” Cine-Excess VII: European Erotic Cinema: Identity, Desire and Disgust – The 7th International Conference and Festival on Global Cult Film Traditions, University of Birmingham, UK (November, 2013).

“Must We Adapt Sade? Authorship, Scopophilia and Visual Abjection in Pasolini’s rehistoricised Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975).” Disturbing Adaptations: The 8th Annual Conference of the Association of Adaptation Studies, Linnæus University, Sweden (September, 2013).

“Adaptation’s Invisible Author: The Screenwriter as Liminal Adaptor, and the Poetics of the Interstitial Screenplay.” Visible and Invisible Authorships: The 7th Annual Conference of The Association of Adaptation Studies, University of York, UK (September, 2012).

“The Literary Screenplay, the Novelisation, and Fallacies of Adaptation.” Transformations Seminar Series, Bangor University. UK (April, 2012). 

“Adaptation’s Missing Link: Literature into Film via the Screenplay - Jonze and Eggar’s amplification of Where the Wild Things Are.” Beyond Boundaries: Screenwriting Across Media, Fourth Screenwriting Research Network International Conference, University of Brussels, Belgium (September, 2011). 

“The Children are Horrific: Transformation, Allusion, Inference, Ambiguity and the Intertextual Legacy of The Turn of the Screw.” Lost in Translation: Mediation, Adaptation and Appropriation, University of Leicester (October, 2009). 

“Tarkovsky’s Stalker and the Aesthetics of Screenplay De-genrification.” Science Fiction across Media: Adaptation/Novelization, Leuven University, Belgium (April, 2009).

“Orson Welles’ Phantom Adaptation Screenplay.” Postgraduate Conference, De Montfort University (October, 2008).

“Paratextual Adaptation – Heart of Darkness as Hearts of Darkness.” Association of Adaptation Studies Conference, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands (September, 2008).

Research interests/expertise

I research and publish on the subjects of adaptation, and screenwriting for film and television. My research primarily focuses on the professional and industrial roles of adaptors, screenwriters, authors, and publishers, and their contributions, to the creative industries. My aim is also to analyse contemporary writers in literature, film and television, and to research UK and global contexts for adaptation.

My research considers contemporary, political contexts for adaptation, particularly in works of Television Drama, and questions that arise when considering class, gender, sexuality and race in remediated texts for TV. This research also scrutinises the screenplay as literature, increasingly read by critics, fans and researchers, as well as evaluating it as a form of non-canonical media via theories of multiple authorship. My research also questions these received notions of authorship, engaging with those auteur writer-directors that prolifically and radically adapt source literature. I publish on theories of literature and screenwriting as a form of practice-led research in which the student researcher accesses critical theories of media through creative expression. This research also considers pedagogical contexts for creative writing, including FE, HE and therapeutic contexts for vulnerable people, including prisoners and individuals in the probation service.

I am particularly interested in radical and unfaithful adaptations in the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, Lynne Ramsay, Stanley Kubrick, Derek Jarman and David Cronenberg. I also research the literature of J.G. Ballard, in particular the textual properties of his works that invite and resist specific adaptation approaches.

Areas of teaching

Adaptation, Screenwriting and the Screenplay, Publishing, Film Studies, Television Studies, Marxist Theory and Class Studies, 20th Century Literature, Experimental Literature, Literary Theory, J.G. Ballard, Flannery O’Connor, Andrei Tarkovsky, Comics and Graphic novels, Russian Cinema, East-Asian Cinema

Qualifications

PhD English, Film Studies & Adaptation, De Montfort University, 2013

MA Screenwriting for Film & Television, Northern Film School, LMU, 2004

BA (Hons) English, University of Wolverhampton, 2000

Courses taught

ENGL3102 Writing Adaptations

Honours and awards

HEA National Teaching Senior Fellowship, 2017

Teaching Excellence Award, Bangor University, 2013

Recipient of the De Montfort University 2013 Fred Rickard Award from for most outstanding postgraduate work in the English Department for my PhD Thesis “The Adapted Screenplay: Authorship, Intertextuality and Remediation in the Adaptation Process.” (2013)

Membership of external committees

External Examiner for BA (Hons) English & Film - Edinburgh Napier University (2017-)

Membership of professional associations and societies

Co-Chair (Executive Board) and Trustee for the Association of Adaptation Studies (2010-)

Co-organiser of the Association of Adaptation Studies Annual International conference (2008-2016)

Co-Editor of the Journal of Screenwriting (Intellect) (2016-)

Steering committee member for the Screenwriting Research Network (2012-)

Member of the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA) (2010-)

Member of the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) (2010-)

Member of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, and contributor to the Writers Guild Magazine UK Writer (2004-)

Member of the National Association of Writers in Education (2010-)

Member of the Writers in Prison Foundation, The National Alliance for Arts in Criminal Justice, and Prison Arts Foundation (2004-)

Current research students

1st Supervisor:

Mark Harrison - PhD English 'The Adapted Narratologies of Contemporary Video Games: Storytelling and Remediation in Contemporary Gaming' (2017-2022)

2nd Supervisor:

Peter Lewis - PhD English 'Adapting the Unadaptable: creating new life from old themes in 21st Century Shakespeare novelization' (2017-2022) Ana Weinberg - PhD English 'All for One: What The Three Musketeers Can Teach Us About Adaptation' (2017-2020)