Despite the major advancement in social justice made in the past decades, modern media is still lagging behind when it comes to diversity and the representation of marginalised communities. This poses an important question for the field of adaptation studies: what is adaptation’s role in this issue and how can it properly address issues of social justice and bring more diverse stories to popular media? In this episode, our co-hosts, Ian Grosz and Marianne Fossaluzza, invite May Toudic, a second year PhD student specialising in adaptation theory who argues that, by bringing new perspectives to older works of literature, re-visionary adaptation of Victorian women’s bildungsroman can bridge the gap between past, present and future and between individual and society in order to advocate for social justice. 

Here are some links relevant for the podcast episode.

• Murray Mysteries Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6XRl7bLCrYPHcliWyjpBHR
• Knöves Storytelling Ltd: https://knovesstorytellingcollective.wordpress.com/
• May Toudic Portfolio: https://maytoudic.notion.site/May-Toudic-Portfolio-a3b2070e531e4c93a27c39d9c15fec57
• Adaptation – Cinema and Media Studies: https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199791286/obo-9780199791286-0116.xml#obo-9780199791286-0116-div1-0003

Bio

May Toudic is a PhD student at the University of Aberdeen. Her research focuses on adaptation, modernisation and the relationship between 19th-century novels and 21st-century media. She enjoys all things storytelling – particularly in new media - and is currently writing and producing Murray Mysteries, an audio drama podcast adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.