Genre, Reception, and Adaptation in the 'Twilight' Series Studies in Childhood, 1700 to the Present Series

Much of the criticism on Stephenie Meyer's immensely popular 'Twilight' novels has underrated or even disparaged the books while belittling the questionable taste of an audience that many believe is being inculcated with anti-feminist values. Avoiding a repetition of such reductive critiques of the series's purported shortcomings with respect to literary merit and political correctness, this volume adopts a cultural studies framework to explore the range of scholarly concerns awakened by the 'Twilight novels and their filmic adaptations. Contributors examine 'Twilight's debts to its predecessors in young adult, vampire, and romance literature; the problems of cinematic adaptation; issues in fan and critical reception in the United States and Korea; and the relationship between the series and contemporary conceptualizations of feminism, particularly girl culture. Placing the series within a broad tradition of literary history, reception studies, and filmic adaptation, the collection offers scholars the opportunity to engage with the books' importance for studies of popular culture, gender, and young adult literature.

Introduction, Anne Morey; Chapter 1 “Famine for Food, Expectation for Content”: Jane Eyre as Intertext for the “Twilight” Saga, Anne Morey; Chapter 2 Fantasy, Subjectivity, and Desire in Twilight and Its Sequels, Jackie C. Horne; Chapter 3 Postfeminist Fantasies: Sexuality and Femininity in Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” Series, Kristine Moruzi; Chapter 4 Narrative Intimacy and the Question of Control in the “Twilight” Saga, Sara K. Day; Chapter 5 Bridges, Nodes, and Bare Life: Race in the “Twilight” Saga, Alexandra Hidalgo; Chapter 6 Girl Culture and the “Twilight” Franchise, Catherine Driscoll; Chapter 7 “Twilight” Fans Represented in Commercial Paratexts and Inter-Fandoms: Resisting and Repurposing Negative Fan Stereotypes, Matt Hills; Chapter 8 Coming to a Violent End: Narrative Closure and the Death Drive in Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” Series, Rachel DuBois; Chapter 9 The Giddyshame Paradox: Why “Twilight”‘s Anti-Fans Cannot Stop Reading a Series They (Love to) Hate, Sarah Wagenseller Goletz; Chapter 10 Between Twi-Hards and Twi-Haters: The Complicated Terrain of Online “Twilight” Audience Communities, Anne Gilbert; Chapter 11 “I’d Never Given Much Thought to How I Would Die”: Uses (and the Decline) of Voiceover in the “Twilight” Films, Katie Kapurch; Chapter 12 Traveling in the Same Boat: Adapting Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse to Film, Mark D. Cunningham; Chapter 13 Adaptation and Reception: The Case of the “Twilight” Saga in Korea, Hye Chung Han, Chan Hee Hwang;