Global Frankenstein (eBook)

Carol Margaret Davison is Professor of English Literature at the University of Windsor, Canada and the author of History of the Gothic: Gothic Literature, 1764-1824 (2009) and Anti-Semitism and British Gothic Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). She recently edited The Gothic and Death (2017) and The Edinburgh Companion to the Scottish Gothic (2017) with Monica Germanà.  Marie Mulvey-Roberts is Professor of English Literature at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK and author of Dangerous Bodies: Historicising the Gothic Corporeal (2016), winner of the Alan Lloyd Smith Memorial Prize.  She has authored, edited, and co-edited over 30 books. Recently she made a film on Frankenstein for a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on the literary South West.

Dedication 6
Foreword 7
Acknowledgements 11
Contents 12
Notes on Contributors 15
List of Figures 22
Chapter 1: Introduction: Global Reanimations of Frankenstein 24
Works Cited 39
Part I: Frankenstein: Science, Technology, and the Nature of Life 41
Chapter 2: The Gothic Image and the Quandaries of Science in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein 42
Works Cited 55
Chapter 3: Paracelsus and ‘P[r]etty Experimentalism’: The Glass Prison of Science and Secrecy in Frankenstein 57
‘A Bird’s Eye View of Your Heart’: Godwin’s Sentimental Education 57
Victor Frankenstein: Vision Versus Experiment 63
Paracelsus and Neoplatonic Tradition 69
Works Cited 72
Chapter 4: Monstrous Dissections and Surgery as Performance: Gender, Race and the Bride of Frankenstein 73
Works Cited 90
Part II: Frankenstein and Disabled, Indecorous, Mortal Bodies 92
Chapter 5: ‘The Human Senses Are Insurmountable Barriers’: Deformity, Sympathy, and Monster Love in Three Variations on Frankenstein 93
‘A Manuscript Found in a Madhouse’ (1829) 97
Young Frankenstein (1974) 102
‘The Crimson Horror,’ Doctor Who (2013) 105
Works Cited 108
Chapter 6: ‘We Sometimes Paused to Laugh Outright’: Frankenstein and the Struggle for Decorum 109
Works Cited 123
Chapter 7: Monstrous, Mortal Embodiment and Last Dances: Frankenstein and the Ballet 126
Works Cited 144
Part III: Spectacular Frankensteins on Screen and Stage 147
Chapter 8: ‘Now I Am a Man!’: Performing Sexual Violence in the National Theatre Production of Frankenstein 148
Works Cited 161
Chapter 9: The Cadaver’s Pulse: Cinema and the Modern Prometheus 163
Montage and the Creation of New Life 164
Early Frankenstein: Cutting the Narrative and Re-cutting the Film 166
Whale’s Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein 167
Transnational Frankenstein 171
Found Footage Frankenstein 175
Works Cited 178
Chapter 10: Promethean Myths of the Twenty-First Century: Contemporary Frankenstein Film Adaptations and the Rise of the Viral Zombie 181
Contemporary Frankenstein Film Adaptations 184
Viral Zombies as Frankensteinian Dispersions 188
Works Cited 195
Part IV: Frankensteinian Illustrations and Literary Adaptations 197
Chapter 11: Frankenstein and the Peculiar Power of the Comics 198
The Monsters of Literature and Cinema 200
The Monster in Pictures 204
Words, Images and the Endless Life of a Monster 217
Works Cited 219
Chapter 12: Our Progeny’s Monsters: Frankenstein Retold for Children in Picturebooks and Graphic Novels 221
Works Cited 236
Chapter 13: Beyond the Filthy Form: Illustrating Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein 238
The (Illustrated) Redemption of a Forsaken Creature 239
‘My Own Vampire … Let Loose from the Grave’ 242
The Wildest Dreams 245
‘A Filthy Type of Yours’ 247
‘I Bid My Hideous Progeny Go Forth and Prosper’ 250
Frankenstein’s Illustrated Editions 253
Works Cited 254
Part V: Futuristic Frankensteins/Frankensteinian Futures 256
Chapter 14: The Frankenstein Meme: The Memetic Prominence of Mary Shelley’s Creature in Anglo-American Visual and Material Cultures 257
What’s in a Meme? 258
Prometheus, Automata, and the Proto-Frankenstein 260
The Frankenstein Meme 262
Noir Cinematic Adaptation: A First Case Study in the Power of Memes 265
China Miéville, Automata, and Agency: The Construct Council and the Remade 268
Contemporary (Sub)Cultural Response 269
Frankenstein and the Future 271
Works Cited 272
Chapter 15: Frankenstein in Hyperspace: The Gothic Return of Digital Technologies to the Origins of Virtual Space in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein 274
Works Cited 289
Chapter 16: Playing the Intercorporeal: Frankenstein’s Legacy for Games 291
Direct Adaptations: The Gamification of Frankenstein 293
Indirect Adaptation: World of Warcraft as Frankenstein Text 296
Corporeal Collaging: Creativity, Death and Tragedy 300
Frankenstein-Based Games 307
Works Cited 308
Chapter 17: What Was Man…? Reimagining Monstrosity from Humanism to Trashumanism 309
Resistance Is Futile 312
Trashuman 317
Works Cited 323
Afterword: Meditation on the Monster, a Poem 326
I 326
II 327
III 328
IV 329
V 329
VI 330
VII 331
VIII 333
IX 334
Index 336