Adaptation — Journal Profile

Adaptation is the leading international, peer-reviewed journal of adaptation studies, published by Oxford University Press since 2008. Devoted to the study of literature "on screen" and beyond, it publishes original research on adaptations across film, theatre, literature, animation, music, television, video games, and other media forms — and is the flagship journal of the Association of Adaptation Studies.

At a Glance

Origins and Institutional Home

Adaptation was launched in 2008, published by Oxford University Press, at a moment when adaptation studies was consolidating from a dispersed set of film-and-literature inquiries into a self-conscious academic field. The journal's founding was twinned with the formation of the Association of Adaptation Studies — a group drawn from literature and film backgrounds whose aim is to bring together the diverse strands and developments in the field — and the journal remains the association's flagship publication. Members of the association can subscribe at a heavily reduced rate.

The journal is closely associated with the Centre for Adaptations at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, a research center that has been central to the institutional development of adaptation studies in Britain. Early editorial leadership included Professor Deborah Cartmell of De Montfort University as co-editor. The journal began with two issues per year and subsequently expanded to three.

Scope and Mission

Oxford University Press describes Adaptation as the leading international, peer-reviewed journal of adaptation studies — a journal that actively contributes to the development and visibility of adaptation studies as a field of academic enquiry and seeks to advance methodological approaches to the adaptive process. Its remit is deliberately broad and interdisciplinary, inviting perspectives including (but not limited to):

• Film and Screen Studies;
• Literary Criticism;
• Visual and Performing Arts;
• New Media and Transmedia Storytelling.

Topics range from familiar examples — novel-to-screen and stage-to-screen adaptations — to less recognized forms such as remakes, fan fiction, themed experiences, adaptations of musicals across media, and the cultural adaptation and translation of existing works. The journal encourages research offering global perspectives on adaptation through diverse examples, and it publishes original articles alongside reviews of adaptation-studies books, conferences, films, and television.

The journal's table of contents over the years reflects the field's evolution: early volumes engaged the classic "fidelity" debate (whether adaptations are "true to the spirit" of their sources), while more recent issues have addressed bioadaptations (adaptations of real lives), race and adaptation, adaptation and the public humanities, ecological implications of adaptation, adaptation-induced tourism, and — in a recent special-issue call — generative AI and machine adaptation. This trajectory shows a journal actively tracking the field's movement from text-to-screen comparison toward a broader theory of cultural recycling and transformation, and it continues to define the research frontier.

Editorial Structure

The journal operates with an editorial team drawn from the adaptation-studies scholarly community, historically centered on De Montfort University. Published records name Deborah Cartmell as co-editor; a university announcement noted the appointment of Colleen Kennedy-Karpat (Bilkent University) as an associate editor. Because editorial teams change, readers should consult the live masthead on the Oxford Academic journal page for the current editors-in-chief and board. The journal also runs an annual prize for the best published article by an Early Career Researcher (ECR), with winning articles made free to read — a deliberate mechanism for promoting new scholars in the field.

Peer Review and Publication Model

Adaptation is peer reviewed, and articles are made available early via Oxford's Advance Access system ahead of issue compilation. The journal moved to an all-online format in 2018. It operates on a hybrid model: institutional subscription access with open-access publication options for authors (it appears on OUP's hybrid-journal lists). The precise review model, acceptance rates, and turnaround times are not publicly disclosed in the materials consulted for this profile.

Frequency and Format

The journal publishes three issues per year (triannual), having expanded from an initial two. Volumes are numbered annually — Volume 6 (2013) carried, for example, essays on Truffaut, Shakespeare on screen, Austen adaptations, and poet biopics — and articles carry DOIs under the 10.1093/adaptation prefix. Recent volumes (Volume 18, 2025; Volume 19, 2026) continue the triannual rhythm.

Readership and Field Position

Adaptation is widely regarded as the field-defining journal of adaptation studies: it is the journal most consistently cited in the discipline's historiography, the venue of the Association of Adaptation Studies, and the home of the field's key debates — from fidelity criticism to transmedia adaptation theory. Its international scope and readership, combined with Oxford University Press's distribution, make it the standard first submission target for adaptation-studies research. The journal's special issues function as field surveys, collecting state-of-the-art work on emerging topics such as AI-generated adaptation and the public humanities.

Indexing and Visibility

The journal is indexed in the major humanities and social-science databases appropriate to its field. Aggregator-derived records report coverage from 2010 to 2026 and a Q1 standing in relevant categories; these secondary figures are attributed to their directory sources rather than independently verified. The print ISSN is 1755-0637 and the online ISSN is 1755-0645.

How to Submit

Scholars working on any aspect of adaptation — from screen adaptations of literature and theatre to video games, fan cultures, musicals, and AI-generated adaptations — may submit through Oxford University Press's online submission system (linked from academic.oup.com/adaptation). The journal particularly welcomes interdisciplinary and globally diverse perspectives. Prospective authors should consult the current author guidelines on the OUP journal page for formatting, length, and open-access options before submitting.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the journal Adaptation?

The leading international peer-reviewed journal of adaptation studies, published by Oxford University Press since 2008, covering adaptations across film, theatre, literature, animation, music, television, video games, and other media.

Who publishes Adaptation?

Oxford University Press. It is the flagship journal of the Association of Adaptation Studies and is affiliated with the Centre for Adaptations at De Montfort University, Leicester.

How often is Adaptation published?

Three times per year (triannual); it began with two issues per year and later expanded to three.

Is Adaptation open access?

It operates on a hybrid model — subscription access with open-access options for authors, and it appears on OUP's published hybrid-journal lists. It has been online-only since 2018, with Advance Access for early article publication, so new research appears online as soon as it is ready rather than waiting for an issue to close. Members of the Association of Adaptation Studies can subscribe at a heavily reduced rate, and the annual ECR Prize winners are made free to read — so there are several routes to the journal's content beyond a standard institutional subscription.

What are its ISSNs?

Print ISSN 1755-0637; online ISSN 1755-0645.

Does the journal support early-career researchers?

Yes — it awards an annual ECR Prize for the best published article by an early career researcher, with winning articles made free to read for a limited time. The prize is a deliberate talent pipeline: it gives new scholars prominent visibility in the field's flagship venue at the moment their careers most need it. Combined with the association's conferences and the journal's openness to first-time authors with strong interdisciplinary work, the ECR Prize makes Adaptation one of the more welcoming top-tier journals for emerging adaptation scholars.

What kinds of topics does Adaptation cover?

Anything within adaptation studies: novel-to-screen and stage-to-screen adaptations, remakes, fan fiction, transmedia storytelling, musicals, bioadaptations, race and adaptation, AI and adaptation, adaptation-induced tourism, the ecological implications of adaptation, and the theory and methodology of adaptation itself. The journal's special-issue program continually extends this list, with recent calls addressing generative AI, the public humanities, and musical theatre across cultures.

The Field: A Brief History of Adaptation Studies

Adaptation did not invent its field, but it gave the field its institutional home. The study of adaptation began as an offshoot of film studies: George Bluestone's Novels into Film (1957) founded the systematic comparison of literary sources and their screen versions, and for decades the dominant question was "fidelity" — how faithful a film is to its book. By the 1990s and 2000s, scholars including Brian McFarlane, Robert Stam, and Kamilla Elliott had dismantled fidelity as a naive criterion, arguing that adaptations are reworkings shaped by industrial, cultural, and ideological forces rather than failed copies of originals. Linda Hutcheon's A Theory of Adaptation (2006) then reframed adaptation as a distinct creative mode — repetition with variation — opening the field to video games, theme parks, fan fiction, and transmedia storytelling.

The journal Adaptation, launched in 2008, arrived at exactly this inflection point, and its pages document the field's subsequent expansion: from the fidelity debate through the "post-fidelity" turn to today's concerns with global circulation, race, ecology, and artificial intelligence. Thomas Leitch's Oxford Handbook of Adaptation Studies (2017) — itself published by OUP — consolidated the field's canon, and the journal continues to function as its running record.

The Association of Adaptation Studies

The Association of Adaptation Studies is the journal's parent learned society: a group of scholars drawn from literature and film backgrounds whose stated aim is to bring together the diverse strands and developments in the field. The association holds annual conferences — the venues where the field's agenda is set — and its members receive the journal at a heavily reduced subscription rate, binding the society and the periodical into a single scholarly ecosystem. For early-career researchers, the association-journal nexus is the primary professional network of the discipline: the conferences are where jobs are found and collaborations formed, and the journal is where the resulting work is published.

Special Issues as Field Surveys

One of the journal's most visible functions is its program of special issues, which operate as state-of-the-field surveys. Recent and forthcoming examples illustrate the range:

• Bioadaptations — adaptations of real lives across media, where fidelity to "true stories" becomes ethically and aesthetically fraught;
• Adaptation and generative AI — machine-generated adaptations and what they imply for authorship, creativity, and adaptation theory, a topic the journal framed as eerily familiar to adaptation scholars long accustomed to thinking about mechanical reproduction;
• Adaptation and the public humanities — theatrical performance for the public good, adaptation-induced tourism, and the ecological implications of adaptation;
• Race, nation, and adaptation — a collected set of previously published articles presented in recognition of Black Lives Matter and global movements against racism;
• Adaptation in/of/for musicals — cultural adaptation and translation of musicals, adaptation of musicals across media, and indigenous musical theatre.

Taken together, these issues show a journal deliberately pushing its field outward — from the novel-to-film dyad toward music, AI, tourism, ecology, and public culture.

Editorial Leadership and De Montfort

The journal's editorial center of gravity has been De Montfort University in Leicester, home to the Centre for Adaptations and to Professor Deborah Cartmell, the journal's co-editor in its formative years and one of the founding figures of adaptation studies as an organized discipline. The Centre for Adaptations functions as the journal's research base: a hub for doctoral supervision, conferences, and collaborative projects in adaptation. The appointment of associate editors from institutions such as Bilkent University (Colleen Kennedy-Karpat) reflects the journal's internationalization beyond its British base. As always with editorial personnel, readers should check the live masthead on the Oxford Academic page for the current team.

Publishing with Oxford University Press

Publication by Oxford University Press places the journal within one of the world's largest university-press journal programs, with the attendant benefits of professional production, global library distribution, and the Oxford Academic platform. The hybrid model means authors can choose open-access publication (typically funded by institutional agreements or article charges) while the journal otherwise sustains itself on subscriptions. Advance Access publication — posting articles online before issue compilation — keeps the journal's content current in a fast-moving field. Article DOIs under the 10.1093/adaptation prefix integrate the journal into Crossref's citation infrastructure.

For Prospective Authors: What the Journal Wants

Adaptation casts its net deliberately wide, and its published guidance to authors reflects that. The journal invites a range of interdisciplinary perspectives — Film and Screen Studies, Literary Criticism, Visual and Performing Arts, New Media and Transmedia Storytelling — and it explicitly encourages research providing global perspectives on adaptation through diverse examples. In practice, successful submissions tend to share certain qualities: they move beyond plot-comparison toward theoretical or methodological contribution; they engage the field's existing debates (fidelity, medium specificity, cultural politics, transmedia circulation); and they bring fresh archives or geographies into view.

The journal publishes several article types. Original research articles form the core; alongside them run reviews of adaptation-studies books and conferences, and reviews of films, television, and other adapted media. Special issues — often guest-edited — provide an alternative route in: scholars with a coherent collective project (on musicals, on AI, on bioadaptation) can propose a themed volume. The annual ECR Prize adds a further incentive for doctoral students and recent PhDs: the best article by an early-career researcher wins recognition and open-access visibility, with winning articles made free to read for a limited time.

Practically, authors should note the journal's rhythms: three issues per year, Advance Access posting ahead of issue compilation, and a hybrid open-access model that allows (but does not require) paid open access. Submission is through Oxford's online system, and the journal's site carries the current author guidelines. For adaptation-studies scholars, the journal's status as the field's flagship means acceptance carries significant professional weight — it is the venue most likely to be read by everyone working in the discipline.

The Journal in the Classroom

Beyond its research function, Adaptation has become a teaching resource. University courses on adaptation — now common in English, film, and media departments — routinely assign its articles, and the journal's debates provide ready-made seminar structures: the fidelity question (is faithfulness a meaningful criterion?), the medium-specificity debate (what changes when a story moves from novel to film to game?), the politics of adaptation (who gets to retell whose stories?), and the economics of the adaptation industry. The journal's reviews section doubles as a discovery tool for instructors tracking new books, while the open-access ECR Prize winners offer accessible entry points for students. In this way the journal reproduces its field generationally: today's students encounter adaptation studies through its pages and become tomorrow's contributors.

Fields Not Publicly Disclosed

In keeping with a strict no-fabrication standard, the following are not asserted in this profile because no verified source was found: the current editors-in-chief and full editorial board roster (consult the live OUP masthead); the peer-review blinding model, acceptance rates, and turnaround times; article-processing charges for the open-access option; and current-year citation metrics beyond attributed aggregator snapshots.

Sources and Verification Note

This profile was compiled from the journal's Oxford Academic page (academic.oup.com/adaptation — scope, frequency, ECR prize, Advance Access, association affiliation), the Association of Adaptation Studies journal page (adaptation.uk.com — triannual schedule, scope, review content), a Bilkent University announcement (OUP publisher since 2008, online-only since 2018, editorial appointment), and a CSIC library listing of OUP hybrid journals (hybrid model, online ISSN 1755-0645). Secondary-source metrics are attributed to their sources rather than stated as independently verified facts. Readers should confirm time-sensitive details — editorial personnel, submission guidelines, and fees — on the live OUP journal page before acting on them.