Frankenstein and Philosophy

Frankenstein and Philosophy PDF Author: Nicolas Michaud
Publisher: Open Court
ISBN: 0812698363
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Ever since it was first unleashed in 1818 the story of Victor Frankenstein and his reanimated, stitched-together corpse has inspired intense debate. Can organic life be reanimated using electricity or genetic manipulation? If so, could Frankenstein’s monster really teach itself to read and speak as Mary Shelley imagined? Do monsters have rights, or responsibilities to those who would as soon kill them? What is it about music that so affects Frankenstein’s monster, or any of us? What does Mel Brook’s Frau Blucher say to contemporary eco-feminism? Why are some Frankenstein’s flops and others historic successes? Is there a true Frankenstein? Why are children, but not adults, drawn to Shelley’s monster? And what is a “monster,” anyway? Frankenstein and Philosophy calls 25 philosophers to stitch together these and other questions as they apply to history’s greatest horror franchise. Some chapters treat the Frankenstein films, others the original novel, and yet others the many comic books, novels, and modern adaptations. Together they pay tribute to perhaps the most enduring pop culture icon and the fundamental fears, hopes, and puzzles it raises.

Frankenstein and Philosophy

Frankenstein and Philosophy PDF Author: Nicolas Michaud
Publisher: Open Court
ISBN: 0812698363
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Get Book Here

Book Description
Ever since it was first unleashed in 1818 the story of Victor Frankenstein and his reanimated, stitched-together corpse has inspired intense debate. Can organic life be reanimated using electricity or genetic manipulation? If so, could Frankenstein’s monster really teach itself to read and speak as Mary Shelley imagined? Do monsters have rights, or responsibilities to those who would as soon kill them? What is it about music that so affects Frankenstein’s monster, or any of us? What does Mel Brook’s Frau Blucher say to contemporary eco-feminism? Why are some Frankenstein’s flops and others historic successes? Is there a true Frankenstein? Why are children, but not adults, drawn to Shelley’s monster? And what is a “monster,” anyway? Frankenstein and Philosophy calls 25 philosophers to stitch together these and other questions as they apply to history’s greatest horror franchise. Some chapters treat the Frankenstein films, others the original novel, and yet others the many comic books, novels, and modern adaptations. Together they pay tribute to perhaps the most enduring pop culture icon and the fundamental fears, hopes, and puzzles it raises.

Mary Shelley and the Rights of the Child

Mary Shelley and the Rights of the Child PDF Author: Eileen Hunt Botting
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812249623
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
In Mary Shelley and the Rights of the Child, Eileen Hunt Botting contends that Frankenstein is a profound work of speculative fiction designed to engage a radical moral and political question: do children have rights?

Making the Monster

Making the Monster PDF Author: Kathryn Harkup
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472933753
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
A thrilling and gruesome look at the science that influenced Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The year 1818 saw the publication of one of the most influential science-fiction stories of all time. Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley had a huge impact on the gothic horror and science-fiction genres, and her creation has become part of our everyday culture, from cartoons to Hallowe'en costumes. Even the name 'Frankenstein' has become a by-word for evil scientists and dangerous experiments. How did a teenager with no formal education come up with the idea for such an extraordinary novel? Clues are dotted throughout Georgian science and popular culture. The years before the book's publication saw huge advances in our understanding of the natural sciences, in areas such as electricity and physiology, for example. Sensational science demonstrations caught the imagination of the general public, while the newspapers were full of lurid tales of murderers and resurrectionists. Making the Monster explores the scientific background behind Mary Shelley's book. Is there any science fact behind the science fiction? And how might a real-life Victor Frankenstein have gone about creating his monster? From tales of volcanic eruptions, artificial life and chemical revolutions, to experimental surgery, 'monsters' and electrical experiments on human cadavers, Kathryn Harkup examines the science and scientists that influenced Shelley, and inspired her most famous creation.

Frankenstein in Theory

Frankenstein in Theory PDF Author: Orrin N. C. Wang
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781501360824
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
"A collection of essays on Frankenstein written by distinguished and younger scholars of Romantic studies, utilizing ambitious critical theories in literary and cultural studies"--

Raising the Dead

Raising the Dead PDF Author: Andy Dougan
Publisher: Birlinn
ISBN: 0857905538
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein, introduced readers around the world to the concept of raising the dead through scientific procedures. Those who read the book were thrilled by this incredible Gothic adventure. Few, however, realised that Shelley's story had a basis in fact. What she imagined as her modern Prometheus was a serious pursuit for some of the greatest minds of the early 19th century. It was a time when scientists genuinely believed, as Frankenstein did, that they could know what it feels like to be God. Raising the Dead is the story of the science of galvanism - named after the Italian scientist Luigi Galvini who had conducted the original experiments - a movement that investigated the theory of 'animal electricity', a unifying vital spirit that animates us all, its leaders believing that they stood on the brink of immortality. While they ultimately failed in this challenge, their studies mapped out the nervous system and made valuable and enduring contributions to modern-day medical knowledge and understanding - from theorising the concept of the modern-day defibrillator, and 'deep brain stimulus' which is used to treat personality disorders, to experimental procedures involving the use of microchip-controlled devices to bridge damaged spinal nerves.

The Philosophy of Horror

The Philosophy of Horror PDF Author: Thomas Fahy
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813173701
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Sitting on pins and needles, anxiously waiting to see what will happen next, horror audiences crave the fear and exhilaration generated by a terrifying story; their anticipation is palpable. But they also breathe a sigh of relief when the action is over, when they are able to close their books or leave the movie theater. Whether serious, kitschy, frightening, or ridiculous, horror not only arouses the senses but also raises profound questions about fear, safety, justice, and suffering. From literature and urban legends to film and television, horror’s ability to thrill has made it an integral part of modern entertainment. Thomas Fahy and twelve other scholars reveal the underlying themes of the genre in The Philosophy of Horror. Examining the evolving role of horror, the contributing authors investigate works such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), horror films of the 1930s, Stephen King’s novels, Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining (1980), and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). Also examined are works that have largely been ignored in philosophical circles, including Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1965), Patrick Süskind’s Perfume (1985), and James Purdy’s Narrow Rooms (2005). The analysis also extends to contemporary forms of popular horror and “torture-horror” films of the last decade, including Saw (2004), Hostel (2005), The Devil’s Rejects (2005), and The Hills Have Eyes (2006), as well as the ongoing popularity of horror on the small screen. The Philosophy of Horror celebrates the strange, compelling, and disturbing elements of horror, drawing on interpretive approaches such as feminist, postcolonial, Marxist, and psychoanalytic criticism. The book invites readers to consider horror’s various manifestations and transformations since the late 1700s, probing its social, cultural, and political functions in today’s media-hungry society.

The Philosopher at the End of the Universe

The Philosopher at the End of the Universe PDF Author: Mark Rowlands
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312322342
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
This provocative, thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining guide explains the basics of philosophy as seen through today's blockbuster science fiction movies.

The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley

The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley PDF Author: Esther Schor
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139826735
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Known from her day to ours as 'the Author of Frankenstein', Mary Shelley indeed created one of the central myths of modernity. But she went on to survive all manner of upheaval - personal, political, and professional - and to produce an oeuvre of bracing intelligence and wide cultural sweep. The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley helps readers to assess for themselves her remarkable body of work. In clear, accessible essays, a distinguished group of scholars place Shelley's works in several historical and aesthetic contexts: literary history, the legacies of her parents William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and of course the life and afterlife, in cinema, robotics and hypertext, of Frankenstein. Other topics covered include Mary Shelley as a biographer and cultural critic, as the first editor of Percy Shelley's works, and as travel writer. This invaluable volume is complemented by a chronology, a guide to further reading and a select filmography.

Artificial Life After Frankenstein

Artificial Life After Frankenstein PDF Author: Eileen Hunt Botting
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812252748
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Artificial Life After Frankenstein brings the insights born of Mary Shelley's legacy to bear upon the ethics and politics of making artificial life and intelligence in the twenty-first century. What are the obligations of humanity to the artificial creatures we make? And what are the corresponding rights of those creatures, whether they are learning machines or genetically modified organisms? In seeking ways to respond to these questions, so vital for our age of genetic engineering and artificial intelligence, we would do well to turn to the capacious mind and imaginative genius of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851). Shelley's novels Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) and The Last Man (1826) precipitated a modern political strain of science fiction concerned with the ethical dilemmas that arise when we make artificial life—and make life artificial—through science, technology, and other forms of cultural change. In Artificial Life After Frankenstein, Eileen Hunt Botting puts Shelley and several classics of modern political science fiction into dialogue with contemporary political science and philosophy, in order to challenge some of the apocalyptic fears at the fore of twenty-first-century political thought on AI and genetic engineering. Focusing on the prevailing myths that artificial forms of life will end the world, destroy nature, and extinguish love, Botting shows how Shelley modeled ways to break down and transform the meanings of apocalypse, nature, and love in the face of widespread and deep-seated fear about the power of technology and artifice to undermine the possibility of humanity, community, and life itself. Through their explorations of these themes, Mary Shelley and authors of modern political science fiction from H. G. Wells to Nnedi Okorafor have paved the way for a techno-political philosophy of living with the artifice of humanity in all of its complexity. In Artificial Life After Frankenstein, Botting brings the insights born of Shelley's legacy to bear upon the ethics and politics of making artificial life and intelligence in the twenty-first century.

English Classics: Frankenstein

English Classics: Frankenstein PDF Author: Mary Shelley
Publisher: Gramedia Pustaka Utama
ISBN: 6020618676
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”