Global 19th Century Workshop with Kylie Sago
Literary Adaptation and Racial Formation: Remediations of Ourika in Theater and Fashion

This talk explores the role of literary adaptation in racial formation during the nineteenth century. Claire de Duras’s short novel Ourika (1823) and its remediations in theater and fashion illustrate how representations of race changed as narratives were adapted for new genres and media. The unauthorized adaptations of Duras’s bestselling text shed light on contemporary interpretations of the first Black female protagonist in French literature. The boulevard plays and "Ourika" fashion trend eliminate narrative ambiguity from Duras's novel, cementing the persistent reputation that its plot hinges on an unrequited "interracial" desire. Attention to adaptation not only invites a reevaluation of longstanding critical assumptions about Duras’s text, but ultimately offers a new approach to the fictions of race more generally.

Kylie Sago is Assistant Professor of French in the Department of European Studies at San Diego State University.

Sponsored by the Global 19th Century Workshop at the Center for Ideas & Society