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Why Frankenstein?

Technologies of Language

Orality: Creature ->Victor -> Walton


Orality: Creature ->Victor -> WaltonWriting: Letters from Walton to sister;

Elizabeth to Victor



Elizabeth to VictorPrint: Our book; 1818 edition vs. 1831 edition



Elizabeth to VictorPrint: our books; 1818 edition vs. 1831

editionElectronic edition

Anxiety of Technology

Plato’s critique of literacyThe affects of technology on the world, good

and bad: “I have become death, the destroyer of worlds.” – J.P. Openheimer

Ways of Reading (1)

Reading: “To inspect and interpret in thought any signs which represent words or discourse; to look over or scan something written, printed, etc. with understanding of what is meant by the letters or signs.” –OED “Marginalia and other Crimes” Technology of the book Print edition vs. electronic edition

Ways of Reading (2)

Reading: “The interpretation or meaning attached to anything, the view taken of it. Now also: the rendering given to a play or a character, a piece of music, etc.” –OED Ways in which the medium of reading affects how we

interpret a text (hyperlinks, editorial notes, etc.)

Construction of the Human

Are we the sum of our physical selves?Are we “blank slates,” learning what it is to

be human from those around us?Are we the product of our environment, the

geographies that surround and define us?Some combination of the above?We “construct” our online selves online: do

we make monsters or gods?

The Nature of Friendship

We are social beingsWho do we include in our circle of friends,

and who do we exclude? Dual nature of friendship: friend/fiend Does digital technology change the

fundamental nature of friendship or simply facilitate it in new ways?

Intertextuality

“A text cannot be created simply out of lived experience. A novelist writes a novel because he or she is familiar with this kind of textual organization of experience.” –Walter J. Ong Hamlet Paradise Lost Ghost stories Fables

Frankenstein becomes the intertextual source for subsequent writing (i.e. Patchwork Girl)

Remediation

Can we think of Frankenstein as a “remediated” text?

Foundation for looking at the other texts we will read in this class