If you only know of Frankenstein from the silver screen, maybe you don’t know Frankenstein at all! It is time to reconsider the classic novel by Mary Shelley, with an eye toward how it speaks to a world where scientific breakthroughs vie for headline space with an anti-intellectual backlash. We will explore what Frankenstein might have to say to current issues such as gene editing and when life begins, not to mention recent vaccination debates. Many believe that we have been living in a golden age of science—is that about to come crashing down around us under the pressures of political division and “alternative facts”? Some see this novel as a subversive feminist commentary on motherhood and procreation, others as a Gothic masterpiece, or even as the first science fiction novel. Come and decide for yourself why people are still reading—and reinterpreting—Frankenstein.
Suggested Reading: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley