{"id":4469,"date":"2018-02-05T22:55:11","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T22:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stanford.edu\/group\/bookclub\/cgi-bin\/wordpress\/?p=4469"},"modified":"2018-02-06T03:36:55","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T03:36:55","slug":"frankensteinstanford-a-full-house-on-a-very-rainy-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/?p=4469","title":{"rendered":"Frankenstein@Stanford: excellent company and an unforgettable book on a very rainy night!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Another full house for Another Look’s bicentennial celebration of Mary Shelley<\/strong>‘s\u00a0Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0And though the night was rainy, the audience was warm, intelligent, and enthusiastic. Although Frankenstein\u00a0was a special two-hour session with four discussants, we barely scratched the surface of the aesthetic and moral dimensions of the novel.\u00a0As promised, we focused on the book as a literary work: a flowering of the romantic imagination, as well as a pioneering landmark in science fiction. Though the Another Look director,\u00a0Robert Pogue Harrison<\/a><\/strong><\/a>, had some penetrating observations about moral responsibility for invention in a technology age \u2013 we are all heirs of Victor Frankenstein, who abdicated responsibility and abandoned the creature he had created.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dr. Audrey Shafer<\/strong>, a Stanford professor and anesthesiologist on the steering committee for \u00a0Frankenstein@200<\/a>\u00a0campus-wide events, made opening remarks, and presented the panelists with Frankenstein mugs, a keepsake for participation in the Stanford program. Robert Harrison\u00a0moderated the discussion. He was joined by three panelists who have all taught\u00a0Frankenstein\u00a0<\/em>at Stanford: French Prof.\u00a0Dan Edelstein<\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0Classics Prof.\u00a0Andrea Nightingale<\/a><\/strong>, and former Stanford fellow\u00a0Inga Pierson<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Another Look’s winter event on\u00a0Frankenstein\u00a0<\/em>was\u00a0part of Stanford’s year-long celebration of the bicentennial of the book’s 1818 publication, when the young author was twenty years old.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Her tale has proved timely, even prophetic, given our current concerns about artificial intelligence, animal-to-human transplants, and stem cells.\u00a0<\/span>Frankenstein\u00a0<\/em>explores role of conscience in creation, and asks: What does it mean to be human? Is it wise to play God? And don’t we all fear that our creative triumphs will turn against us, destroying us and those we love.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to critic Harold Bloom<\/strong>, \u201cThe greatest paradox and most astonishing achievement of Mary Shelley’s novel is that the monster is more human <\/em>than his creator. This nameless being, as much a modern Adam as his creator is a modern Prometheus, is more lovable than his creator and more hateful, more to be pitied and more to be feared, and above all able to give the attentive reader that shock of added consciousness in which aesthetic recognition compels a heightened realization of the self.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photos for the event were taken by our faithful Another Look fan\u00a0David Schwartz<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The much-awaited podca<\/span>st is here<\/span><\/a>. Enjoy!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another full house for Another Look’s bicentennial celebration of Mary Shelley‘s\u00a0Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.\u00a0And though the night was rainy, the audience was warm, intelligent, and enthusiastic. Although Frankenstein\u00a0was a special two-hour session with four discussants, we barely scratched the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}