Ripples and Rebounds: Tracing the Impact of Frankenstein
Presentation
Paper/Presentation Title | Ripples and Rebounds: Tracing the Impact of Frankenstein |
---|---|
Presentation Type | Presentation |
Authors | |
Author | Bedford, Alison |
Year | 2018 |
Conference/Event | 39th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts: (ICFA39) '200 Years of the Fantastic: Celebrating Frankenstein and Mary Shelley' |
Event Details | 39th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts: (ICFA39) '200 Years of the Fantastic: Celebrating Frankenstein and Mary Shelley' Event Date 14 to end of 18 Mar 2018 Event Location Orlando, United States |
Abstract | When Mary Shelley cast her debut novel Frankenstein into the pool of Romantic culture in 1818 she triggered waves of influence that are still being felt today. Almost immediately, Frankenstein’s creature was adopted and adapted within popular culture. This rapid uptake of the core imagery of the novel will be traced using the Google Advanced Interface tool to show not only the speed of uptake but also the diversity in the ways the imagery of the Creature was utilised. It was not until almost a century after Shelley’s death scholars turned their attention to why the image of Frankenstein’s creature had become so culturally pervasive. For almost a century after Shelley’s initial publication, the ripple effect of responses to the morally ambiguous close of Frankenstein were largely cultural and critical, rather than literary. As Fred Botting suggests in Making Monstrous, there is a doubling (or fragmented mirroring) in the authorship, structure, characters and responses to the novel. This inability to identify a definitive reading of the novel is part of the reason debate continues to rage about whether Brian Aldiss’s famous assertion that Frankenstein is 'the first real novel of science fiction' (1973, 30) is accurate. I propose that this debate stems from the lag time between the novel’s publication and the firm establishment of SF as a genre. This lag can be accounted for by seeing the influence of the novel as a series of ripples that followed out, intersecting with other cultural ideas and discourses, before hitting the ‘shore’ and rebounding back in to the literary space from which they emanated. That is, 'Frankenstein' (the image/term) was absorbed into the zeitgeist before Frankenstein’s (the novel’s) influence on genre was perceptible. We can see Shelley’s novel as a Gothic work, with something ‘superadded’ that is the ripple of the “what if” premise that would rebound back into literature as a fundamental feature of the SF genre. The moral ambiguity of the novel’s closing caused ripples that have had influence upon not only SF as a genre, but, in their interactions with other discourses, established a space where readers can reflect upon scientific endeavours and draw moral boundaries for themselves. This space is now most often occupied by works of SF, and so I argue Shelley’s real legacy to genre is not a series of tropes but rather a new way of exploring the world in which we live (and the worlds in which we might live) through fiction that asks 'what if' and lets us draw our own conclusions. I ultimately propose that in Frankenstein we can see not just the foundation of the nascent SF genre but the creation of a moralising space that is Shelley’s enduring legacy to literature and why her Creature still creates waves in both our culture and scholarship today. |
Keywords | Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, Foucault, discourse, science fiction |
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020 | 470504. British and Irish literature |
470207. Cultural theory | |
470514. Literary theory | |
Public Notes | File reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher/author. |
Byline Affiliations | University of Southern Queensland |
Institution of Origin | University of Southern Queensland |
https://research.usq.edu.au/item/q79qy/ripples-and-rebounds-tracing-the-impact-of-frankenstein
Download files
179
total views68
total downloads1
views this month0
downloads this month
Export as
Related outputs
Toil and trouble: why time-poor teachers choose these texts today
Bedford, Alison. 2024. "Toil and trouble: why time-poor teachers choose these texts today." EduResearch Matters: A Voice for Australian Education Researchers.Hey History! Giving voice to Australian history by Anna Clark, Jane Curtis, Clare Wright and Britta Jorgensen
Bedford, Alison. 2024. "Hey History! Giving voice to Australian history by Anna Clark, Jane Curtis, Clare Wright and Britta Jorgensen." History Australia. https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2024.2412973Collaborative supervision of teacher-researchers: A professional development success story
Bedford, Alison, Scott, Emily, Hede, Crystal and Cook, Peter. 2024. "Collaborative supervision of teacher-researchers: A professional development success story." The Australian Educational Leader. 46 (3), pp. 56-58.A Teacher's Guide to Academic Integrity and GenAI
Roux, R., Bedford, A., Burke, K., Thomas, J., Chamlin, T., Hede, C., Scott, E. and Kann, E.. 2024. A Teacher's Guide to Academic Integrity and GenAI. University of Southern Queensland.Frankenstein Episode 4: Sense and sustainability
Bedford, Alison. 2024. Frankenstein Episode 4: Sense and sustainability.A call for different perspectives
Bedford, Alison and Barnes, Naomi. 2024. "A call for different perspectives." Historical Thinking, Culture, and Education. 1 (1). https://doi.org/10.12685/htce.1317Australia’s national(ist) history curriculum: history education as a site of attempted de-democratisation
Bedford, Alison and Kerby, Martin. 2024. "Australia’s national(ist) history curriculum: history education as a site of attempted de-democratisation." Curriculum Perspectives. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-024-00248-9Not just in black and white: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australian children’s picture books
Zerafa-Payne, Emerson, Kerby, Martin, Tualaulelei, Eseta, Bedford, Alison and Baguley, Margaret. 2024. "Not just in black and white: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australian children’s picture books." Australian Journal of Language and Literacy. 47 (1), pp. 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44020-023-00048-0How to say gay: what should happen in Australia
Seeley, Kahlia and Bedford, Alison. 2023. "How to say gay: what should happen in Australia." EduResearch Matters: A Voice for Australian Education Researchers.The Search for Truth: Filming the Battle of Meewah
Maddock, Daniel, Baguley, Margaret, Kerby, Martin and Bedford, Alison. 2023. "The Search for Truth: Filming the Battle of Meewah." Historical Encounters. 10 (2), pp. 106-119. https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.210Australian children's picture books, the Frontier Wars, and Joseph Campbell's hero with a thousand faces
Baguley, Margaret, Kerby, Martin, Bedford, Alison and O'Brien, Mia. 2023. "Australian children's picture books, the Frontier Wars, and Joseph Campbell's hero with a thousand faces." Historical Encounters. 10 (2), pp. 73-83. https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.207The very marrow of the national idea: Frontier wars and the Australian curriculum
Bedford, Alison, Kerby, Martin, Baguley, Margaret and Maddock, Daniel. 2023. "The very marrow of the national idea: Frontier wars and the Australian curriculum." Historical Encounters. 10 (2), pp. 22-37. https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.203Biographical Essay of Mary Shelley
Bedford, Alison. 2023. "Biographical Essay of Mary Shelley." Frankenstein Art Novel. Bond and Grace.A Visual Analysis of Meet … Captain Cook (2011) – a Modern Australian Picture Book
Baguley, Margaret, Bedford, Alison, Ryan, Lisa, Kerby, Martin and Tualaulelei, Eseta. 2023. "A Visual Analysis of Meet … Captain Cook (2011) – a Modern Australian Picture Book." Australian Art Education. 44 (3), pp. 3-16.The ABC of history education: a comparison of Australian, British and Canadian approaches to teaching national and First Nations histories
Bedford, Alison. 2023. "The ABC of history education: a comparison of Australian, British and Canadian approaches to teaching national and First Nations histories." History of Education Review. https://doi.org/10.1108/HER-06-2022-0024A scoping review of LGBTQIA+ inclusion in Queensland’s North Coast Region secondary school policies
Seeley, Kahlia and Bedford, Alison. 2023. "A scoping review of LGBTQIA+ inclusion in Queensland’s North Coast Region secondary school policies." Issues in Educational Research. 33 (3), pp. 1161-1189.Empowering Teachers and Democratising Schooling: Perspectives from Australia by Keith Heggart and Steven Kolber (eds.)
Bedford, Alison. 2023. "Empowering Teachers and Democratising Schooling: Perspectives from Australia by Keith Heggart and Steven Kolber (eds.)." Australian Journal of Education. 67 (3), pp. 308-309. https://doi.org/10.1177/00049441231199553Just How Radical Is Radical: Children’s Picture Books and Trans Youth
Bedford, Alison, Bromdal, Annette, Kerby, Martin and Baguley, Margaret. 2023. "Just How Radical Is Radical: Children’s Picture Books and Trans Youth ." Children's Literature in Education: an international quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-023-09537-9The Subjugation of Art to Propaganda: An Anti-trans Children’s Picture Book and the Culture Wars
Kerby, Martin, Curtis, Elizabeth, Bedford, Alison and Baguley, Margaret. 2022. "The Subjugation of Art to Propaganda: An Anti-trans Children’s Picture Book and the Culture Wars." Australian Art Education. 43 (2), pp. 186-199.Critical and collaborative problem-solving: An action research project on the development of cognition-centred inquiry for Year 11 senior history
Bedford, Alison. 2023. "Critical and collaborative problem-solving: An action research project on the development of cognition-centred inquiry for Year 11 senior history." Impact. (18).Direct and Indirect Benefits: an Open Peer Review of Zamarti, L. & Nally, D. (2023). The impact of archaeology professional development on history teachers’ pedagogy.
Bedford, Alison. 2023. "Direct and Indirect Benefits: an Open Peer Review of Zamarti, L. & Nally, D. (2023). The impact of archaeology professional development on history teachers’ pedagogy. " Public History Review. 11 (1).If these stones could speak: War memorials and contested memory
Kerby, Martin, Baguley, Margaret, Bedford, Alison and Gehrmann, Richard. 2021. "If these stones could speak: War memorials and contested memory." Historical Encounters. 8 (3), pp. 1-12. https://doi.org/10.52289/hej8.301In the Heart of the Land and the People they Loved: Community responses to commemoration
Kerby, Martin, Maddock, Daniel, Gehrmann, Richard, Baguley, Margaret and Bedford, Alison. 2021. In the Heart of the Land and the People they Loved: Community responses to commemoration. Toowoomba, Australia.Implied Rather than Intended? Children’s Picture Books, Civil Religion, and the First Landing on the Moon
Kerby, Martin, Baguley, Margaret, Bedford, Alison and Maddock, Daniel. 2024. "Implied Rather than Intended? Children’s Picture Books, Civil Religion, and the First Landing on the Moon." Children's Literature in Education: an international quarterly. 55 (3), pp. 483-500. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-022-09519-3What you should know now about the NSW government and Dolores Umbridge’s evil ways
Bedford, Alison. 2022. "What you should know now about the NSW government and Dolores Umbridge’s evil ways ." EduResearch Matters: A Voice for Australian Education Researchers. 7 November 2022.