Liberty and Responsibility in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”
ABSTRACT
In honor of the bicentennial of Frankenstein's publication, the conference examined the novel's "monstrous conceptions" and how they contribute to a timeless discussion of rights and responsibilities, particularly in relation to scientific experiments, parenting, race, labor, revolution, and the unintended consequences of our actions. In conjunction with Mary Shelley's text, conferees read excerpts from contemporary treatments of these issues--especially the works of Shelley's husband, father, and mother.
READING LIST
From Liberty Fund
Select Works of Edmund Burke: Reflections on the Revolution in France
by
By Edmund Burke
Compiled and with a Foreword and Notes by Francis Canavan
Originally published by Oxford University Press in the 1890s, the famed three-volume Payne edition of Select Works is universally revered by students of English history and political thought. Faithfully reproduced in each volume are E. J. Payne’s notes and introductory essays. Francis Canavan, one of the great Burke scholars of…
Additional Readings
Aeschylus. Prometheus Bound, The Suppliants, Seven Against Thebes, The Persians. New York: Penguin Classics, 1961.
Byron, “Prometheus” In The Complete Poetical Works of Lord Byron, edited by Paul Elmer More, 191. Cambridge: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1905.
Darwin, Erasmus, “The Botanic Garden: A Poem, in Two Parts” In Frankenstein, edited by D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, Appendix B. Peterborough: Broadview, 2012.
Darwin, Erasmus, “The Temple of Nature” In Frankenstein, edited by D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, Appendix B. Peterborough: Broadview, 2012.
Godwin, William, “Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness [3rd Edition, 1798]” In Frankenstein, edited by D. L. MacDonald and Kathleen Scherf, Appendix A. Peterborough: Broadview, 2012.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, “Prometheus” In The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume I, edited by Kuno Francke, 23-25. translated by E. A. Bowring. Albany: J. B. Lyon Company, 1913.
Lawrence, William. Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man; Delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons. London: J. Callow, 1819.
Malthus, Thomas Robert. An Essay on the Principle of Population, 1st edition. London: J. Johnson, 1798. http://www.econlib.org/library/Malthus/malPop.html (accessed August 29, 2017).
Milton, John. Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Edited by Christopher B. Ricks. New York: Signet Classic, 2001.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein (1818). Edited by D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2012.
Shelley, Mary, “Introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein” In Frankenstein, edited by D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, 347-352. Peterborough: Broadview, 2012.
Shelley, Mary. Mary Shelley: Collected Tales and Stories. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.
Shelley, Mary [with Percy Shelley]. Journal. Edited by Frederick L. Jones. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1945.
Shelley, Percy. Prometheus Unbound (1820). London: C and J Ollier, 1820.
Shelley, Percy, “On Frankenstein” In Frankenstein, edited by D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, Appendix D. Peterborough: Broadview, 2012.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, “A Vindication of Natural Diet” In Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume 6, edited by Roger Ingpen and Walter E. Peck, 5-18. New York: Scribner, 1929.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, “On the Punishment of Death. A Fragment” In Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume 6, edited by Roger Ingpen and Walter E. Peck, 185-190. New York: Scribner, 1929.
Wollstonecraft, Mary, “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” In Frankenstein, edited by D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, Appendix A. Peterborough: Broadview, 2012.