Black Frankenstein at the Bicentennial
Monster metaphors matter. They show what a culture demonizes and they provide a vocabulary for those who are marked as monstrous to resist.
Monster metaphors matter. They show what a culture demonizes and they provide a vocabulary for those who are marked as monstrous to resist.
Victor Frankenstein’s creative act deliberately blurred the boundary between “person” and “product”—and so will the bioenhancement technologies of the coming century.
Shelley’s Frankenstein has undeniably had a significant influence on modern art and film. Themes that often emerge from such works include electricity and the reanimation of life, the social and biological characteristics of hybrid life, and redesigning bodies through bio-elective enhancement.
The topic of climate first comes in with the writing of the book, in 1816. The 18-year-old Mary Godwin was vacationing in Geneva, Switzerland, with her soon-to-be husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, and friends. It was not much of a vacation because the weather was terrible: gloomy, dark, rainy and cold.
Frankenstein bicentennial
For true-crime aficionados or Investigation Discovery TV network fans, many believe that when Michelle McNamara’s posthumous book, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, was released in late February 2018 McNamara’s reporting had something to do with the arrest of the alleged Golden State Killer, 72-year-old Joseph James…
It must seem odd to our children that this movie presents certain problems as insuperable, but then most Americans under the age of thirty have never known a time like the one portrayed.
When Shakespeare, Poe, or Hitchcock wanted to create an atmosphere of mystery and foreboding, almost always a dark bird from the crow family would appear. Yet, perhaps we should rethink the way many of us think about the First Bird of Creepy. Researchers continue to discover that one of the…
There are tons of listicles during this delightfully creepy time of year recommending gothic or horror-related short stories of yore. However, I would like to share some of the creepier short fiction that has been out more recently. Carmen Machado’s masterpiece (I promise I do not use this word…
The stretch of coastal Louisiana called Acadiana, from the Texas border to almost New Orleans, is often sold as a foodie culture, though its people would never call it that. The Francophone foodway has adapted to local resources, so French mirepoix, for instance, (carrots, celery, onion) became the Cajun “holy…