Just over 200 years ago on a stormy night, a young woman conceived of what would become one of the most iconic images of science gone wrong, the story of Victor Frankenstein and his Creature. For a long period, Mary Shelley languished in the shadow of her luminary husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, but was rescued from obscurity by the feminist scholars of the 1970s and 1980s. This book offers a new perspective on Shelley and on science fiction, arguing that she both established a new discursive space for moral thinking and laid the groundwork for the genre of science fiction. Adopting a contextual biographical approach and undertaking a close reading of the 1818 and 1831 editions of the text give readers insight into how this story synthesizes many of the concerns about new science prevalent in Shelley's time. Using Michel Foucault's concept of discourse, the present work argues that Shelley should be not only credited with the foundation of a genre but recognized as a figure who created a new cultural space for readers to explore their fears and negotiate the moral landscape of new science.

In this study of Grotowski's Objective Drama Research one of his students details the practical, performing structures that originated in his workshops. In bringing attention to the recent work of this titan theorist and director, this volume is of great importance to performers, directors, and all who are interested in the history of theatre and performance.

Frankenstein and Its Classics is the first collection of scholarship dedicated to how Frankenstein and works inspired by it draw on ancient Greek and Roman literature, history, philosophy, and myth. Presenting twelve new essays intended for students, scholars, and other readers of Mary Shelley's novel, the volume explores classical receptions in some of Frankenstein's most important scenes, sources, and adaptations. Not limited to literature, the chapters discuss a wide range of modern materials-including recent films like Alex Garland's Ex Machina and comics like Matt Fraction's and Christian Ward's Ody-C-in relation to ancient works including Hesiod's Theogony, Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and Apuleius's The Golden Ass. All together, these studies show how Frankenstein, a foundational work of science fiction, brings ancient thought to bear on some of today's most pressing issues, from bioengineering and the creation of artificial intelligence to the struggles of marginalized communities and political revolution. This addition to the comparative study of classics and science fiction reveals deep similarities between ancient and modern ways of imagining the world-and emphasizes the prescience and ongoing importance of Mary Shelley's immortal novel. As Frankenstein turns 200, its complex engagement with classical traditions is more significant than ever.

In Victor Frankenstein, the Monster and the Shadows of Technology: The Frankenstein Prophecies, Romanyshyn asks eight questions that uncover how Mary Shelley’s classic work Frankenstein haunts our world. Providing a uniquely interdisciplinary assessment, Romanyshyn combines Jungian theory, literary criticism and mythology to explore answers to the query at the heart of this book: who is the monster? In the first six questions, Romanyshyn explores how Victor’s story and the Monster’s tale linger today as the dark side of Frankenstein’s quest to create a new species that would bless him as its creator. Victor and the Monster are present in the guises of climate crises, the genocides of our "god wars," the swelling worldwide population of refugees, the loss of place in digital space, the Western obsession with eternal youth and the eclipse of the biological body in genetic and computer technologies that are redefining what it means to be human. In the book’s final two questions, Romanyshyn uncovers some seeds of hope in Mary Shelley’s work and explores how the Monster’s tale reframes her story as a love story. This important book will be essential reading for academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian theory, literature, philosophy and psychology, psychotherapists in practice and in training, and for all who are concerned with the political, social and cultural crises we face today.

Grotesque provides an invaluable and accessible guide to the use (and abuse) of this complex literary term. Justin D. Edwards and Rune Graulund explore the influence of the grotesque on cultural forms throughout history, with particular focus on its representation in literature, visual art and film. The book: presents a history of the literary grotesque from Classical writing to the present examines theoretical debates around the term in their historical and cultural contexts introduce readers to key writers and artists of the grotesque, from Homer to Rabelais, Shakespeare, Carson McCullers and David Cronenberg analyses key terms such as disharmony, deformed and distorted bodies, misfits and freaks explores the grotesque in relation to queer theory, post-colonialism and the carnivalesque. Grotesque presents readers with an original and distinctive overview of this vital genre and is an essential guide for students of literature, art history and film studies.

*Man Booker International Prize finalist* “Brave and ingenious.” —The New York Times “Gripping, darkly humorous . . . profound.” —Phil Klay, bestselling author and National Book Award winner for Redeployment “Extraordinary . . . A devastating but essential read.” —Kevin Powers, bestselling author and National Book Award finalist for The Yellow Birds From the rubble-strewn streets of U.S.-occupied Baghdad, Hadi—a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café—collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed. Hadi soon realizes he’s created a monster, one that needs human flesh to survive—first from the guilty, and then from anyone in its path. A prizewinning novel by “Baghdad’s new literary star” (The New York Times), Frankenstein in Baghdad captures with white-knuckle horror and black humor the surreal reality of contemporary Iraq.

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Science Fiction is the first large-scale reference work of its kind, critically assessing the relations of gender and genre in science fiction (SF) especially—but not exclusively—as explored in speculative art by women and LGBTQ+ artists across the world. This global volume builds upon the traditions of interdisciplinary inquiry by connecting established topics in gender studies and science fiction studies with emergent ideas from researchers in different media. Taken together, they challenge conventional generic boundaries; provide new ways of approaching familiar texts; recover lost artists and introduce new ones; connect the revival of old, hate-based politics with the increasing visibility of imagined futures for all; and show how SF stories about new kinds of gender relations inspire new models of artistic, technoscientific, and political practice. Their chapters are grouped into five conversations—about the history of gender and genre, theoretical frameworks, subjectivities, medias and transmedialities, and transtemporalities—that are central to discussions of gender and SF in the current moment. A range of both emerging and established names in media, literature, and cultural studies engage with a huge diversity of topics including eco-criticism, animal studies, cyborg and posthumanist theory, masculinity, critical race studies, Indigenous futurisms, Black girlhood, and gaming. This is an essential resource for students and scholars studying gender, sexuality, and/or science fiction.