The appeal of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, first published in 1818, is unbroken. There are not many other Romantic texts that have had such a rich afterlife in modern and contemporary literature, shifting between media, being adapted to different ends. Shelley’s novel, to the present day, figures in discussions of reproductive science, images of the (mad) scientist, the boundaries of science and knowledge, but also gendered views of artistic creativity and the history of female authorship. In this seminar we will read Frankenstein and embed it in its Romantic contexts. We will consider filmic and other visual adaptations, and read two more novels: Jeannette Winterson’s Frankisstein (2019) and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021). These two 21st-century novels will enable us to trace the repercussions of Shelley’s novel in present-day discourses on sexual identity, artificial intelligence, posthuman identities, and romantic love. While we will focus on the literary texts and some historical contexts, we will also want to study from a theoretical angle the processes underlying adaptation as well as posthumanist aspects.
- Teacher: Nino Liam Töndury