Preston Hayes

I am a first-year doctoral student in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, with research interests of a comparative nature.  One particular research area of mine concerns "text-to-screen" adaptations of literary works in the horror, science fiction and fantasy genres.  Why might major plot elements, characters, or both, of an original literary work be either re-invented or completely absent in film form.  Might this be due to legal difficulties or societal attitudes, technological limitations or progress, financial exigencies to cater to a specific national audience and its expectations, a "subtle" message the director wishes to convey to the audience, etc.?      

Within the previously mentioned genres, I have more recently developed an interest in both polar and nautical horror.  What is it, for instance, about the Antarctic and/or the Arctic which guides some imaginations to link these regions to horror rather than simply to the thrill of being at the "end of the world?"  What is it about being on a ship at sea that might lend itself toward apprehension of doom from an author's point of view?  Additionally, I am interested in how any one author might use the worlds or characters created by another writer within the horror, science fiction and fantasy genres, in such a way as to add to an already established literary cycle (such as the case of the contemporary German author Wolfgang Hohlbein in respect to Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos or  to Verne's 20,000 Lieues sous les mers).  To that end, I enjoy observing the differences unique to each writer that reflects a different, but still linked, voice, to an established literary universe that stretches across languages, nationalities and centuries.