Recent Book: Transmedia Creatures: Frankenstein’s Afterlives

I believe this was the last collection of essays that came out in print for the 200th-anniversary of Frankenstein. My apologies for the delay in posting the details.


Transmedia Creatures: Frankenstein’s Afterlives
Edited by Francesca Saggini, Anna Enrichetta Soccio.
https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/transmedia-creatures/9781684480616


Contributions by Lidia De Michelis, Eleanor Beal, Gino Roncaglia, Claire Nally, Claudia Gualtieri, Federico Meschini, Enrico Reggiani, Diego Saglia, Daniele Pio Buenza, Ruth Heholt, Andrew McInnes, Janet Larson

296 pages, 6, 6 x 9

Paperback,October 19, 2018,$29.95
978-1-6844-8060-9
[other formats also available]


About This Book
On the 200th anniversary of the first edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Transmedia Creatures presents studies of Frankenstein by international scholars from converging disciplines such as humanities, musicology, film studies, television studies, English and digital humanities. These innovative contributions investigate the afterlives of a novel taught in a disparate array of courses - Frankenstein disturbs and transcends boundaries, be they political, ethical, theological, aesthetic, and not least of media, ensuring its vibrant presence in contemporary popular culture. Transmedia Creatures highlights how cultural content is redistributed through multiple media, forms and modes of production (including user-generated ones from “below”) that often appear synchronously and dismantle and renew established readings of the text, while at the same time incorporating and revitalizing aspects that have always been central to it. The authors engage with concepts, value systems and aesthetic-moral categories—among them the family, horror, monstrosity, diversity, education, risk, technology, the body—from a variety of contemporary approaches and highly original perspectives, which yields new connections. Ultimately, Frankenstein, as evidenced by this collection, is paradoxically enriched by the heteroglossia of preconceptions, misreadings, and overreadings that attend it, and that reveal the complex interweaving of perceptions and responses it generates.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.



Table of Contents

Abbreviations ix

Introduction: Frankenstein: Presence, Process, Progress
Francesca Saggini

PA R T I
Labs, Bots, and Punks: Transmediating Technology and Science
1 Frankenstein and Science Fiction
Gino Roncaglia
2 Monstrous Algorithms and the Web of Fear: Risk, Crisis, and Spectral Finance in Robert Harris’s The Fear Index
Lidia De Michelis
3 Frankensteinian Gods, Fembots, and the New Technological Frontier in Alex Garland’s Ex_Machina
Eleanor Beal

PA R T I I
Becoming Monsters: The Limits of the Human
4 Staging Steampunk Aesthetics in Frankenstein Adaptations: Mechanization, Disability, and the Body
Claire Nally
5 Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus in the Postcolony
Claudia Gualtieri
6 Four- Color Myth: Frankenstein in the Comics
Federico Meschini

PA RT I I I
The Evolution Games of Sight and Sound
7 “Uncouth and inarticulate sounds”: Musico- Literary Traces in Frankenstein, and Frankenstein in Art Music
Enrico Reggiani
8 Enter Monsieur le Monstre: Cultural Border- Crossing and Frankenstein in London and Paris in 1826
Diego Saglia
9 The Theme of the Doppelgänger in James Searle Dawley’s Frankenstein
Daniele Pio Buenza
10 Perverting the Family: Re- Working Victor Frankenstein’s Gothic Blood- Ties in Penny Dreadful
Ruth Heholt

PA R T I V
Monster Reflections
11 The Masked Performer and “the Mane Electric”: The Lives and Multimedia Afterlives of Margaret Atwood’s Doctor Frankenstein
Janet Larson
12 Young Adult Frankenstein
Andrew McInnes
13 Revivifying Frankenstein’s Myth: Historical Encounters and Dialogism in Back from the Dead:
The True Sequel to Frankenstein
Anna Enrichetta Soccio

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

Index

About the Contributors



About the Author/Editor
FRANCESCA SAGGINI is a professor of English literature at the Università della Tuscia in Viterbo, Italy. She is the author of many books, including The Gothic Novel and the Stage: Romantic Appropriations.

ANNA E. SOCCIO is a professor of English literature at the Università G. d’Annunzio in Chieti, Italy. She is the author of several books, including Come leggere “Hard Times”.

CFP Frankenstein’s Lives: Shelley’s Novel as Cultural Phenomenon (expired)

Profuse apologies for having missed this as well.


Frankenstein’s Lives: Shelley’s Novel as Cultural Phenomenon
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2019/02/21/frankenstein%E2%80%99s-lives-shelley%E2%80%99s-novel-as-cultural-phenomenon

deadline for submissions: May 20, 2019

full name / name of organization:
Robert I. Lublin and Elizabeth Fay

contact email:
robert.lublin@umb.edu

Call for Papers: Frankenstein’s Lives: Shelley’s Novel as Cultural Phenomenon

Co-edited by Robert I. Lublin and Elizabeth Fay

We seek chapter proposals for a collection that celebrates the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

After 200 years, Frankenstein has emerged into an international cultural phenomenon. During the novel’s bicentennial, events took place around the world to celebrate the novel’s publication. Frankenstein continues to be more salient than ever. We are compiling a collection that explores the range of cultural responses the novel has elicited as well as the ways it continues to be relevant to our world today and to the future.

Frankenstein’s Lives will explore the various ways that the novel has proved to be a cultural touchstone, particularly in moments of stress. For instance, The Living Theatre creatively responded to the politics of the 1960s with their piece of “total theatre,” Frankenstein. Today, more than ever, the novel speaks to us as we encounter an increasingly uncertain world. Recent theatrical revisions have staged the novel in politically trenchant ways. 21st century film versions highlight 21st century fears. The novel also speaks to current political pressures that threaten to tear our world apart. Essays may take a broad range of approaches, so long as they seek to make sense of the cultural phenomenon Frankenstein has become. We welcome critical and creative interventions in our understanding of the novel as a social and cultural phenomenon.



Possible chapter topics:

• Science Fiction
• Frankenstein on stage
• Gender studies
• Technology
• Animal studies
• Food
• Artistic responses
• Music
• Postcolonialism
• Poststructural philosophy
• Politics
• Monstrosity

Please submit a proposal (500 word max) along with a brief bio (50 word max) to both Robert I. Lublin (robert.lublin@umb.edu) and Elizabeth Fay (elizabeth.fay@umb.edu) by May 20, 2019. Final essays should be 6500-9000 words, including notes and citations. Feel free to contact the co-editors if you have any questions.


Last updated February 21, 2019
This CFP has been viewed 2,920 times.

CFP The Scientist in Popular Culture (expired)

My apologies for having missed posting this earlier. It is an intriguing approach to the legacy of Shelley's novel.


Edited Collection - The Scientist in Popular Culture
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2019/08/21/edited-collection-the-scientist-in-popular-culture

deadline for submissions: September 15, 2019

full name / name of organization: Rebecca Janicker, University of Portsmouth
contact email: rebecca.janicker@port.ac.uk


From news and documentaries to TV drama and major media franchises, science has become a firm fixture in contemporary media culture. Across these diverse formats, a fascination with the perceived capacity of science – whether in the guise of medicine, criminology, space science or engineering – to transform life in wonderful and fearful ways endures. The figure of the scientist is science made manifest and, though different variants have evolved over the centuries, the scientist has remained a constant presence in Western culture. The last hundred years or so has seen many developments in science and technology and popular culture has kept abreast of these, portraying scientists that respond to the shifting hopes and fears of eager audiences. Science fiction may work variously to celebrate or denigrate scientific values and activities and many horror fictions have explored the ramifications of dabbling in science and technology. Moreover, the recent flourishing of superhero narratives has meant a strong focus on such characters and scenarios. The imaginary feats and failures, as well as the cultural prominence, of scientists have attained ever-greater heights as a result. Science and scientists have also flourished in other genres, such as forensic drama, police procedurals and true crime narratives, found their way into children’s fictions, and into comedy.

Acknowledging the long and enduring history of fictional scientists, including adaptations and re-imaginings, this planned essay collection seeks to offer critical interrogations of recent portrayals of the scientist as well as fresh insights into long-established characters. Scientists have featured on the big screen from the early days of cinema and held their own on the small for decades, from network television staples and lavish HBO offerings to recent fare on streaming services like Netflix. With this tradition in mind, suggested case studies might include, though are not limited to, the following texts:

Films: Annihilation (2018); Back to the Future (1985); Contact (1997); Deep Blue Sea (1999); Despicable Me (2010); The Fly (1958), The Fly (1986); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931); Frankenstein,etc (Universal), Curse of Frankenstein, etc (Hammer), I, Frankenstein (2014); Godzilla (1998), Godzilla (2014); Hollow Man (2000); Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989); I Am Legend (2007); The Invisible Man (1933); Island of Lost Souls (1932), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996); Jurassic Park (1993), etc; The Man with Two Brains (1983); The Martian (2015); MCU (Black Panther, Deadpool, The Hulk, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Venom,etc); Mimic (1997); The Nutty Professor (1996); The Omega Man (1971); Outbreak (1995); Piranha (1978); Re-Animator (1985); Splice (2009); World War Z (2013); Young Frankenstein (1974); 28 Days Later (2002), plus any prequels, sequels and other franchise entries.

TV: The Alienist; American Horror Story; The Big Bang Theory; Bones; Chernobyl; CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, CSI: Cyber; Dexter; Doctor Who; The Flash; Futurama; Game of Thrones; Hannibal; The O.A.; Penny Dreadful; Rick and Morty; Ripper Street; Sherlock; Silent Witness; The Strain; Stranger Things; Waking the Dead; The Walking Dead; Westworld, plus any spin-offs and other franchise entries.

Potential topics might include: issues of representation (e.g. age, childhood, gender, race, sexuality); genre (e.g. detective fiction, forensic drama, medical drama, police procedurals); Gothic and horror tropes; the role of the scientist in environmental catastrophes and outbreaks; national identity and history; science and ideology (e.g. philosophy, religion, scientism); science in partnership (e.g. business, Government, military, etc)



Advice for Contributors

Please send 250 word abstracts, along with a short bio, to Rebecca.Janicker@port.ac.uk by September 15, 2019. Abstracts should aim to clarify the intended scope and focus of the essay and include a provisional title. Queries are welcome at the same email address.



Publishers have been contacted about the project and abstracts will form part of the written proposal. The final essays will be scholarly and engaging and 7000–8000 words in total.



About the Editor

Rebecca Janicker is a Senior Lecturer in Film and Media Studies at the University of Portsmouth, UK. She received her PhD from the University of Nottingham in 2014 and had her thesis published as The Literary Haunted House: Lovecraft, Matheson, King and the Horror in Between (McFarland, 2015). She is the editor of Reading ‘American Horror Story’: Essays on the Television Franchise (McFarland, 2017) and has published journal articles and book chapters on Gothic and horror in literature and comics, film and TV.



Last updated August 22, 2019

Monster Force (1994)

Monster Force (1994) is a short-lived animated series from Universal. It sets the studio's famous monsters into the near future year of 2020, where a team of heroes, aided by Frankenstein's Monster, face off against a band of evil monsters lead by Dracula. Of note, the 2020 of Monster Force is a highly advanced era compared to our time, and the show is very much a science fiction series full of advanced technology.

The first seven episodes of the series were released on DVD back in 2009. Here's hoping for a full release next year (when we catch up to the show).

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Young Frankenstein (1974), from Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks, is simultaneously a brilliant homage to and send-up of the Universal Frankenstein films. It presents a continuation and recasting of the Frankenstein story that brings a descendant of Victor Frankenstein back to his ancestral home, where (as the musical adaption so matter-of-factly puts it) he joins the family business.

Frankenweenie (1984 and 2012)

Tim Burton's Frankenweenie begin as a short film (1984) and was later remade into a full-length feature (2012). It offers an interesting recasting of the Frankenstein story in its account of the love between a young boy and his pet.

Frankenstein Unbound (1990)

Frankenstein Unbound (1990), a rare science-fictional take on the story, is based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by Brian W. Aldiss. The film (and the novel before it) casts a time traveler from the future back to the year 1817. There he encounters both characters from Frankenstein as well as a young Mary Shelley.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) offers an interesting adaptation of the novel. It is not a totally faithful retelling but does offer some insight into how such a production might be envisioned.