1. Queer/Adaptation: An Introduction

This chapter introduces the concept of queer/adaptation: parallel theoretical constructs that can both orient the way we think about texts. To adapt is to transform, to make new; to queer is to make strange but also to turn or transform. To queer, then, may be to adapt; to adapt is to queer. Both adaptation and queerness suffer from the stereotype of being secondary: to identify something as an adaptation is to recognize it in relation to something else that seems more original, more authentic. Similarly, to identify something as queer is to place it in relation to what has been already established as “normal” or “straight.” Foundational to both queer studies and adaptation studies is a critical challenge to those assumptions about originality, authenticity, and value.