Frankenstein's Science: Experimentation and Discovery in Romantic Culture, 1780–1830Routledge, 5. dets 2016 - 240 pages Though Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has inspired a vast body of criticism, there are no book-length studies that contextualise this widely taught novel in contemporary scientific and literary debates. The essays in this volume by leading writers in their fields provide new historical scholarship into areas of science and pseudo-science that generated fierce controversy in Mary Shelley's time: anatomy, electricity, medicine, teratology, Mesmerism, quackery and proto-evolutionary biology. The collection embraces a multifaceted view of the exciting cultural climate in Britain and Europe from 1780 to 1830. While Frankenstein is all too often read as a cautionary tale of the inherent dangers of uncontrolled scientific experimentation, the essays here take the reader back to a period when experimenters and radical thinkers viewed science as the harbinger of social innovation that would counter the virulent conservative backlash following the French Revolution. The collection will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars specialising in Romanticism, cultural history, philosophy and the history of science. |
Contents
Women and Scientific Literature in the Early | |
Mary Shelley as a Child | |
Scientific Explorations | |
Animal Experiments and Antivivisection Debates in the 1820s | |
The Teratological Tradition in Science | |
Mesmer Swedenborg and | |
Electrical Romanticism | |
Evolution Revolution and Frankensteins Creature | |
Electrical Showmanship in the English | |
Science Popular Culture and | |
H G Wells Percival Lowell and | |
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Frankenstein's Science: Experimentation and Discovery in Romantic Culture ... Jane Goodall No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
anatomy animals argued Bell’s Benjamin Martin birds body British Cambridge Univ Charles Bell children’s collection collectors contemporary creation creature creature’s cultural curiosity death debates demonstrated described discovery early Earth eighteenth century electricity English Enlightenment Erasmus Darwin Essay evolution evolutionary existence experimentation experiments exploration fiction François Magendie French Geoffroy Gould Gulliver’s Travels Holberg human Ibid idea imagination implications intellectual Jane Goodall John Journal Juvenile Library Kant Klim knowledge Lawrence Lawrence’s lectures Lowell Lowell’s Ludvig Holberg Magendie Magendie’s Mars Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft materialist Mesmerism mind Modern Prometheus monster monstrous moral Museum narrative natural history natural philosophy nature’s nebular hypothesis nerves Newtonian nineteenth century Oxford Univ Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Shelley physical Physiology planet political Press published radical readers reading Romantic Routledge Royal Society Schelling scientific scientists Shelley’s social soul species theory University Victor Frankenstein Voyage Wells’s William Godwin women writing York