Literary Spinoffs: Rewriting the Classics—Re-Imagining the Community

In Literary Spinoffs, Birgit Spengler explores the literary strategies, theoretical dimensions, and cultural implications of contemporary rewritings of nineteenth-century American literary classics. By tapping into powerful, ingrained literary and cultural narratives, literary spinoffs challenge our cultural imagination, revising the ways in which the community constructs itself through stories. Drawing on in-depth case studies of prominent contemporary rewritings, Spengler offers close analyses of the genre’s particular aesthetics and effects, its relationship with other contemporary forms, and the ways it shapes the reading experience. As Spengler shows, the intensely intertextual nature of these works raises questions about the processes of cultural meaning-making and reinvigorates contemporary debates about intellectual property, cultural capital, and high and popular culture.