"The lifeless thing that lay at my feet": THE CORPOREAL IN THE ANTHROPOCENE (Why Frankenstein...)

by putting everyone my name is Osaka Joshua leukemic so I'd like to thank my own today is the lifeless thing that lay at my defeat the corporeal in the Anthropocene we have two speakers because sadly Tim Norton is unable to be with us today so we're gonna have like slightly more time for the talks our first speaker is Lila from the University of Bologna her field is women's romantic theater poetry which dramatic poetry as well she appreciates which inevitably convinced the readers to listen any misty or definitive interpretation the possible range of literature which Frankenstein belongs is white because Beatrice gothic Jacobean sensibility novel dystopian science fiction abolitionism and so on given in terms of its topics Frankenstein offers critics a great number of the Nazi and hermeneutic possibilities to mention just a few education or sanity the double natural versus a natural science versus magic and occult one might also cite in this context Donna Haraway Seibert and Rosie British post humanism which had become pervasive theories since they have influenced the awarding of the conventional categories of subject men knowledge and power if slavery studies post humanism equal criticism anymore and disability studies have greatly contributed to updating the critical panorama of romantic studies this is the intern enriches they interpret a tea frame within which we can place Frankenstein today undoubtedly the three waves of feminism have also had an important impact it would be sufficient to put some of them necessarily in a very selective way in order to understand the extraordinary amount of literary criticism the feminists have dedicated to Mary Shelley and to focus on particular now beside any wars and Gilbert and Opera studies we might recall Barbara Johnson the phantasmagoria of the nursery Patricia Hill Collins the outsider within where the mu star is positioned between gender and minority subject and as a cornerstone and lures Russia modern science that gender minority status and scientific perspectives have played a relevant role in assessing Frankenstein enemies of modernity as for yourself don't earn a scientist and rather the Ransom declare the Frankenstein had a significant part in shaping the popular vision of scientific innovation especially in genetic and biomedical science when Sara Hudson somewhat sternly assert the Frankenstein gives big expression to what many regard at the evils of modern science the humanizing distracting mechanistic malevolent amorphous masculine of complexity find its roots in the substantial and immensity richness the marriage Shelley's novel offered to its readers nourished as it was a myriad of input from the history politics philosophy and scientific discourse of its age in age German subpoenaed the planted countless intellect Rafi that we can still see at work in our own age at the same time it is just such richness that unsettles both traditional assumptions and post modern critical approaches since it's always introduces and predicted cracks and fissures even in consolidating interpretations what however seems a generally recognized quality of the novel if its capacity to challenge our structures especially those depicted as patriarchal and in particular through the phenomenology of the body in fact the novel exposes a new and disturbing corporeality a body being as we might define it burrowing the scariest evocative phrase that although it has not wholly referred from AXA invisible reality nevertheless calls for a big conceptualization and recognition of bodily needs most of the issues developed in focused on this with a creatures countenance implicating the way is represented the way is seen but interesting them also the way he feels in the way he articulates his claim for social stages Shelley's representation and problem intact issue of the controlling and excessive body weight pertaining to the romantic period and to his various political and historical embodiments of social exclusion speaks to the contemporary concerns to Rosemary darlin Thomson in extraordinary bodies states that it is necessary what to their family derive this identity categories by disclosing how the physically disabled are produced by way of legal medical political culture in literary narratives that comprise an exclusionary discourse constructed and embodiment of reporter is efficiency and deviance personality disabled body becomes a repository for social anxiety about such troubling concern as vulnerability control and adept to learn jay davis in enforcing normal field in order to understand the disabled body we must return to the concept the problem is not the person with disability the problem the way the normalcy is constructed to create the problem of a disabled person and all these issues are somehow forcing and please in the cultural arena by selling yourself in representation of the creatures protect and although friendly sign creatures one of the nominees for some kind of inclusion and citizenship what if his bodily difference in changing within it seemed to be dimension is distinctive talent lies precisely in her ability to create for him consciousness Mary Shelley affirms his presence as narrative sensor metaphorical mouth of structure since his story is played right in the middle of the narrative it is through if th that is creature rather than through his creator that her novel dis concerns and prevents the reader from reaching epistemological certainties the creature marginal oil has he is and constrained within a politically inscribed at entity a queen Susan Porter's words when she refers to woman's body and resistance his body not conforming to the norm is shaped by the social gaze they transform the creature into a monster the optical gaze of power or as it when the deforming of sense of and more forces if her mental body as there is no need for arms physical violence material constraints on it just a case in expecting days against which each individual under its weight will and by Intel arising to the point that it is his own oversee each individual does exciting deed surveillance over and against himself and the world the creature perceive himself through the eyes of the other from the beginning of his life if not only he not wholly suffers the denials of any personal intercourse but also experiences a physical environment that achieved his toll on his body by the people he made on his way due to his rejection by the external world he undergoes a painful process of inner transformation that allows him to change and self awareness and self determination against a fixed and discriminatory social context in this way the most returns into a situated subjectivity that ask for love and sympathy only to the swords ultimately to revenge the creature despite his being renamed and despite his protracted and enforce invisibility uses to be recognized as structure as a symbolic leg who was I what was I when did I come what was my destination at the question the victors creature poses to his greater and that had fermented in a metallic way his own mind yet the existential and ontological questions cannot find an answer if not in the creatures stubborn determination to survive hence he first went to bridge the gap between anonymity and record on your feet first he did so needs to appear to your men not by chance blind race in there trying to convince him of his own natural goodness finally the dramatic confrontation with Victor Frankenstein during this process of self affirmation that I turn throw them into darkest despair or lift him up to hopes and positive expectation confirmative by vitality and desire for life then he learns to speak to Victor he articulated a purse weaving a persuasive and sentiments a performative language he speaks from brilliant to threat to command when asserting the rights of his corporeality the creature I believe the not socialist Christian claiming for himself the right to elect 6:20 he was for a companion who might recognize him at any point and it receives a shock dinner but only when the making of the female creature is accomplished Victor at a they representative agent of a relation a class of individuals they reject a bloody line a bloodline of outcasts transferable from generation to generation indeed establishment melody underlying support it is precisely the entry times interweaving of the political ethnic interpersonal they enable Shelley to map gender and class as virtually constituting mode of social exclusion and oppression the most is made of the object parts of many others and animals the victors collect legally and illegally it is a shocking body not too dissimilar from that of members of the working class of Medicine style whose most was it saying basically recited in there claiming justice political and civil rights from a conservative and oppressive rule in class significantly in a dictionary of medical science published in 1814 anatomy was defined at the signing of bereavement such an official operated physically and mentally meter on the working on the working-class body Yanis McClaren describes how teach in the 19th century manual workers body became a commodity not only for the country today by whom the work was underpaid also from the anonymous to whom the bodies were sold or given free of charge because considered and without value that's transformed by discectomy good to family dignity faith the power index one wolf body energy whose purpose was defection and the club's economy grew the rich developed a whole armoury of protection indeed 1818 the yield the first edition Frankenstein appeared also so the marketing of the metal of thing especially mental Swartz body-snatchers the poor of course could not afford these luxuries their only recourse was to collective self organization not only did they organized a illumination and protection of their poor gradients they also proves up against the resurrectionists frequently inflicting physical injury and the second in dignity threat we the point death was a delivery of their bodies to the anatomist and with Anatomy ours this became a potential fate of all poor people who died in work Alice's should the bodies remained unclaimed like the body of the British proletarians the creatures body is a body without history topography a beautiful definition of or tense experience in her groundbreaking assay Mama's baby puss maybe and given his yellow skin and excessive stature his physicality characterized in the novel in a rational manner foreshadowed the enslaved body they were perceived as unpleasant but not unbearable danger pollution it is course of the time that the creature show very well in his verbal self-defense he resorts to the language of sensibility and Pristina the feelings of sympathy Mary Shelley let the Moose appeal his own cause intentionally violate the spirit of sensibility where goodness insensitive of my traditional correspond to any beautiful and sensitive physical aspect recalling the effect of the creature speech I compassion him and sometimes pain when I saw the fields in math they moved and told my heart seeking and my feelings were altered the preacher came fully for simple a polyfill sympathy remained unheard according to the Alice McLaren port the port of Frankenstein repeatedly traumatizes a failure of social sympathy Shelley maybe redefine sympathy in the Nazi perception of difference rather than perfect transmission necessitating similarity sympathetic listening does not happen naturally only through attentive expression it does not demand identification but rather accommodate difference death a Clarion conclude Chaney is working against if the creature speeches are disseminated with a recurrent human of the world prejudice you know you know how many times you know how many times and I thought you said your sister preference is a novel concern his appearance and the wages interpreted by the geezers they know there's political physiognomic or references such as as has been pointed out the influence of John Kasper monitors almost contemporary theories on physiognomies whenever truth of knowledge is explained by fixed sign it becomes a cheapie and pataga normal but totally teaches the correct emotion according to that body language marches and the numeron face becomes an expressive mark of race class sensibility at inner states of mind o innovators on 10 physiognomies becomes quote the size of divining is suitable spiritual quality from the beautiful testimony of the body exterior and about this notion has a tragic and pernicious impact on these theories of race producing a very racist effect but also had a significant effects not only to fiction but especially our ability state it provides light wannabes indirectly please their tributes in the introductory course to a place of the passion Loretta Stevens also to impact or some action manuals of the time see her recipients illustration of Jackson action it is when no the lava turkey genomica principles we are debating within also craft and Godwin circles despite God wins via skepticism the made he reject from you that God's theory of phrenology an immersion of determinism according to John Graham wrote although he only reluctantly praised beloved said he appreciate his insistence on free will in physiognomies finally declared that nothing can be more certain that the real science of yoga and open them disease to be found in Godwin in one of gotten text expert Reagan reminder Goodwin went so far as to ask his friend William Nicholson to provide a physiognomy called portrait of the child Mary in order to determine the degree of intellectual disposition so a younger Sports argues we can assume that mary shelley's with at least familiar with laboratory science of physiognomy given that both met boost entrants and don't win closest friend relation in his memoirs of the author of the right woman likewise will toka implicitly criticized the llama tooth method in her lectures written during a short president in sweden norway and denmark we might add the close friendship the time heavy fuel a would burst across close friend to elevator during a youth in switzerland and s for watercraft on meeting with Laverton in her biography of mary was dr. Elizabeth work in panel because the following episode among the most intimate of her new acquaintances were mr. and mrs. loosely and they can't have been to the reserved or at least one pleasure party to which she accompanied them this was a mask bo and young rabbit and then in England was with them and there are furthermore if you curious coincidences between biographical details of lavatory if we find it reports in translation and the creatures beside their shared propensity to rage also generosity and persistent loneliness in use one might mention they are painful painful difficulty in learning to speak a difficulty beautifully exploited in the recent adaptation of Frankenstein by media at the National Theatre also was the contribution to Johnson's analytical review as a reviewer of publication of race such as Samuel Stanhope Smith and others they must inevitably have been brought to my attention finally we might refer to many batcher acknowledgement of the intriguing acquaintance apprenticeship between young Percy Bysshe Shelley shortly after leaving Oxford and join other method see no surgeon who's a naturally lecture Shelley attended for one little personally became good friends with former pupil William Lauren wood a frequent visitor of the Godwin home and became he later ported with a burner C given Lawrence's materialist views against his men to spiritualize vitalism going back to work across role in shipping very shows imagination moreover how can we forget the insightful view of Marlon thank you sir when she says good Wollstonecraft consistently invokes abolitionist in her critique of patriarchy a Germany exploit is the effective port of juxtaposing the domesticated woman and they circulated Africa and the port here once again hortensis pillars each place comes to our aid Spiller's working on the matriarchal line age lineage of the African slaves they will trace how the Insley body became a category of Adonis and the space where subjectivity was allegedly absent analyst Lee in winner thought since this nineteen seventies the body has become the very place of difference also the place in which to seek the origins of a new self definition following this line of thoughts it's happy it comes to mind that most in his being at once excessive yet invisible they with rapidity that she's metaphorically produced by his continuous hiding in his be not born packaging and created not by God but by man was an attraction on the basis of his appealing cannot claim either image or paternal ancestry nevertheless it seems resilient cannot play by refusing to be science and to stay recognizable aspects and that up to the very end of his existence but we they must have a time despite his condition as unborn the creature affirms it healed a hundred oh no magic subjectivity that since it did not acknowledge fula option for apocalyptic violence is violence does turns into a painful metaphor for a collecting historical responsibility thank you I would like to start by thanking the organizers for this wonderful conference in particular I Dean and Greg thank you very much and all of you were is yesterday has been what was a wonderful day of inspiring ideas and thank you very much he thank you also for letting me participate actively in this conference I want to ask you to bear with me because I will move in theoretical Direction was my presentation today which is linked to my book length study on facial disfigurement in the American narratives based on the ethics of in other will live in us the creatures face in Mary Shelley's has been the target of numerous investigations concentrating either on its representation in the various cinematic versions on the face anomic approaches or its classic by mention others my will focus on the victor concern excuse me focus on Victor Frankenstein's but focus on Victor Frankenstein's encounter with his creation of the other and his failure to respond ethically to him or in other words his he is the disfigured manifestation of Frankenstein's distorted view of the other so I go a little bit into detail with ravenous ethics of the face and will then apply this my approach to the other in Frankenstein lebanon's philosophy is a philosophy of the other revolutionising the philosophical approach to the other by locating him or her in infinity rather than in the talented of the Cartesian Ecole Latinas insists that the Prima philosophy on is ethics and his ethics is an ethics of the face human beings encounter each other face to face living as argument and it is the face of the other that appeals to me and orders me to respond ethical to him or her far from establishing quote a cozy intimacy between myself and the other the face to face reveals to me that there is quote a whole world outside myself in analogy to the phenomenologist who some one might argue and we recognize the face of the other as similar to our own and therefore integrate its owner into the sphere of the same but letting us understanding of the face is different the face of the other is not the appearance of the alter ego of the SAU eye of the fellow human being it is not a phenomenon in the category of phenomena not even the highest one it is a phenomenon of non phenomena which tears open all fair mentality and cause the subject into an endless responsible in one of the discussions yesterday the question was raised whether did the creature has a self beyond the disfigured appearance and my answer is definitely yes Indian culture face to face with the other an epiphany takes place the face of the other manifests the holiness of the luminous of the other not in its plastic manifestation but by calling me out of my self-satisfaction leaving us speaks of the nakedness and vulnerability of the other and that there is nothing to see in that face if it were to be seen the face would be reduced to an object like other objects of the world so the face is expression of the other who appeals to me from outside my horizon of totality the face manifests the absolute otherness and exteriority of the other it speaks to me not to his words but as revelation the face requires that we see it listen to it hear it and above all responded in the words of Lebanon quote ethics is spiritual optics the face initializes the original speech whose first word is application it is irrefutable and it is irreversible the foremost command of the other space is thou shalt not kill which primarily means do not deprive me of my absolute otherness because this would in demitasse eyes imply that the other as other is killed at least metaphorically moreover it the command says that by reducing the other to a spectacle a thing to be seen categorized and appropriated as the same the other would also be annihilated to perceive the other in an ontological sense instead of ethically responding to him or her is an act of violence in the extreme form it extinguishes the other this imperative ultimately demands respect or the holiness of the wholeness of the other this imperative excludes also the possibility of knowing the other coat and this is central for my argument the ethical relation holds together what knowing cannot hold together the absolute authority of the person and the absolute passivity of the self despite itself the others alternative is experienced as a command to Lebanon's ethics of the face evolved among others from his Jewish background Levinas criticizes any view of God that places him above and apart the human being rather God is present in the human creature and as such the face of the other is a trace of God both of whom are exterior to the self and ultimately so in challenge model as I argue Victor Frankenstein's creature is at once the product of his mind but once worn his other along the lines of Lebanon's I argued that Frankenstein's artificial creation manifests his failure to conceive of the other as : and as exterior to himself the other Frankenstein's creature is the result of the knowledge he seemingly has acquired about the secret of death of life for lebanon's however the other is beyond being and knowing for Frankenstein the other is what he knows and therefore inevitably the product of his egoistic Cartesian eyes his creature is formed according to the same and as such incapable of pointing to as its tres rather the other reverts back to its creator this narcissistic state of isolation the I without and other is Lisa Anton Stein's quest is to uncover the secret of the causation of life he says he found the secret he never comments on what the secret is but he is not satisfied with the knowledge it has gained he turns himself into the causation of life a number of critics have wondered why Frankenstein did not simply attempt to animate a dead body instead of putting together his creature by selecting and assembling various parts from several horses he could very easily have reanimated a dead young beautiful body but he didn't obviously he wants his creature to be unique not upwards resurrected from death to resume the night he had had before his death it must be a creature exclusively his own which emphasizes the egoistic character of his project in the night of the venison ethics of the face this way of forming this creature is significant as you know and for detective war has pointed out for the creatures flesh never reveals any suitors seams or grafts all trace of its selected parts and metonymically the creator's select and are invited a striking contrast to almost every cinematic rendering of the monster even though the suitors of the assembled new body are invisible we know that the body as a whole never existed in its wholeness it is from the start and a sandwich of individual different parts this creature comes into being as a meta as an adult with virtus before attacking a mother lacking birth and childhood back in the process of maturing and missing above all interactive communication with other human beings after his creature has come to life Frankenstein is immediately horrified by the product of his endeavors he comments that his creature looked horrible while unfinished the quote he was ugly then but the living creature the finished end product by far exceeds the horror of the lifeless body and this is a point that I would also like to add he said he selected the features as beautiful but the wholeness of the lively living end product is horrible even beyond imagination Frankenstein explains that the horror is being brought about by the mass motion of the muscles and joints it is precisely this motions motions that signals life a life that once born is independent and beyond the control of its created with the first breath of life the creature manifests himself as the other missile creator just like too tight in relation to his biological father in his hubris Frankenstein had dwelt in the imaginative glory that his creation would misto on him again a narcissistic quest as I would like to add this new species as because it is not so new after all since he had made it clear that he was about to create a species in his own image quote a being like myself what I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself or one of simpler organization but my imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and wonderful as man his attributes complex and wonderful for the species of man he is about to create are exactly the ones that he will fail in his encounter with his creature the other the adjective complex on the one hand we first stood up complicated and involve the body parts that he will manage to combine successively enough to create a living human being but complex also suggests an intravenous that is hard to understand and it is this dimension of the attribute that he will eat more wonderful in the sense of exciting wonder even entrance to the dimension of in comprehensibility but also intimates honor and respect or in his book post modern ethics emptiness and literature choice only argues that quote Frankenstein desire to reach what is above his comprehension and capacity unavoidably results in a distortion the unknowable power issuing from his pure desire and honor for the other turns into a fear which is phenomenological and that fear is embodied in the deformation of the body he is shaping as he challenges what is unknown to him and what he cannot possess the figure he is warming comes to be this figured there's no way for him to figure this pure desire for the other because it is for penalty vigor and what he shapes comes to have an abnormal appearance I do not see Frankenstein's desire let alone pure desire for the other on the contrary Frankenstein is obsessed with creating and other like himself which in Lebanon's line of argument means to eliminate the other to his realm of the same thus depriving him of his the disfigurement of his creation does manifests the visibility of his failure to respond to the other yes it is his own distorted view it has been argued that Frankenstein's creature eludes visibility based on the fact that anyone who catches sight of the metroburg future immediately closes or covered covers their eyes however as I argue they do so precisely because of the visibility of the creature the father of this creature refuses to give a name to his side instead the creature is labeled monster demon or threat with holding a real name from the creature his father dehumanizes him and even refers to him literally as an animal or a criminal comments labeling him in this way quote seems to participate in the further dissection of the subject as fascinating as Thomas doot was article on really inspecting the face as the moral fiction in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is I do not agree with his argument that the central character of the novel is quote designated as the monster who cannot present himself cannot so himself as something visible referring to Foucault and Terra de-emphasizing quote the relation between a monster and what is shown or presented as a spectacle for Dutoit fought in Frankenstein monstrosity is linked to an impossibility of seeing showing for presenting an impossibility of seeing on the part of Frankenstein definitely but not any possibility of showing or inventing the Lautenberg moons ra is etymologically contained in the word monster Frankenstein's creature shows himself as well as something beyond himself if only his creator were willing to see beyond the distorted surface it is true that the focus is on his face rather than his extraordinary size of a treat after his feverish quest for the secret of my victory is varied for the creative act when he is done he sees a monster the beauty of his feeling turned into an image of his first and detailed description of his creation is concentrated on his face and we know this passage it has been repeatedly quoted he speaks of the watery eyes that seemed almost of the same color as white sockets in which they were sent is shriveled complexion and straight black lips as outlined at the beginning for Lebanon us the face speaks it interacts with the other in that it expresses to command to actively respond to it to the one who is that face the face does manifests the holiness of the person's holiness responsibility originates in the call of the face of the other in this first perception of the preacher space Frankenstein is singles out details thus destroying its owners in Paul the man's terms in the faces this creature which is a form of my name panco adequately observes that quote Lebanon's defines violence as the transformation of faces into objective and passive forms into figures which are visible about the face to the appearing of men of individuals who are certainly unique but restituted to their general or as one could also argue having composed his creature out of different body parts he D composes him in his perception which is the beginning office metaphorical killing of the creature from the start Frankenstein violates the holiness of the wholeness of his creature both in the creative act and in his response to what is his mother moreover describing the ISIS watery and white and the lips as black thus ascribing to them colors he symbolically shuts down any possibility of an encounter face-to-face in heaven a sense less than a page later during the night following his creative disaster Frankenstein repeats the impossibility of their encounter what I beheld direct the miserable monster whom I had created he held out the pertinent of the bed and his eyes his eyes they may be called were fixed on me his jaws opened and he muttered some inarticulate sounds while a grin wrinkled his cheeks he might have spoken but I did not hear one hand was stretched out seemingly to detain me but I escaped and rushed downstairs oh no more that could support the horror of that countenance like the outstretched hand the creatures face reaches out to Frankenstein it is through Frankenstein's response that the fixed eyes could have come to life Frankenstein admits the possibility that the creature might have spoken but he refused to hear and he's not even sure that the outstretched hand merely meant to detain him as he adds the word seemingly Frankenstein responds to the face on his mother by refusing to see this face and moreover he responds to him by naming the ineffable and unknowable calling him monster demon and wretch Frankenstein reduces his creature to his ugly appearance he sees only the despicable creature the creatures monstrosity is not as I argue quote a portrayal of the unknown and thus frightful exteriority of Frankenstein's erased itself as he argues it is frankenstein's egoistic self that fails to acknowledge the others exteriority and infinity annihilating the other s other by confining him to the realm of the same and this is the creatures being speaking my form is a physic type of yours more horrid even for the very resemblance and this is what the preacher says after having discovered Frankenstein's journal account of its creation it has been argued that the preacher is Frankenstein's protection of his own dark soul or asthma disparities argue support the creature immediately realizes that his physical protesting is the embodiment of Victor's emotional and spiritual defects even more so I argue he is the embodiment of Frankenstein's ethical effects and tourism this creature space then reflects his own ethical incompetent soul no wonder that as a result Frankenstein shuns the face of man the solitude of his creature becomes his own port deep dark deadlines but while it is only consolation to Frankenstein it is pure suffering to his future an agony that the creature caused by far superior to that of his creator Frankenstein's loneliness is self-imposed as he has averted his eyes from the of the other of every mother his creatures isolation and loneliness result from his being deprived of our relations tool and other Nancy Youssef comments that quote on human selves are born and formed in relation to others and that he Rankine Stein has no such since Frankenstein never allows his creature to escape his scope of the same the creatures self recognitions and catching sight of his image reflected in a pool contains only the abominable serve face as we heard east of his deformed appearance the self-loathing encaged by this self recognition inevitably forces him to abandon his own moral values beautiful is good as we heard yesterday ugly is automatically evil in a moral sense Frankenstein we texts Lavina us called ethical value of the others power to disrupt subjective categories uncombed to remain trapped in the categories of the self result the deadly isolation and loneliness of the eye without an other or to finish with a quote from the bride of Frankie yesterday alone [Applause] okay yeah okay yes means soloman s school University of Notre Dame um thank you for those papers my question is specifically for LaRue I s I wanted to ask about some of the wider implications of your divinity of reading in particular I take I take it you're suggesting that Mary Shelley is offering us a theological or theological inflected critique of some of the instrumentalist behaviors that we we can epitomize then Victor so two questions then one is can we maybe relate those in any way to some of the 1831 revisions which make quite explicit a move towards absolving Victor of some responsibilities about putting emphasis on fate and Providence but if you thought about that and the other question is are you suggesting that this is a direct critique of a very different account of the responsibility to the other that we get in Godwin where the other is to be valued but for very differently theorized reasons for their ability to to pay forward a kind of justice to the whole so those are my two okay yes okay thank you thank you very much for those very interesting comments I need to go beyond this I think along the lines of webinars what is also critically represented is this exclusive focus on the cognitive approach to the secret of life because we Frankenstein constantly speaks of I want to know and my knowledge etc and I think that the critique of the Age of Enlightenment that exclusively focuses on this approach and Lebanon as was his conception of the other goes way beyond is but this is of course like this entry your first question in regard to drawing attention to the human being that I in a religious context or odd as the creature absolutely yes because what I wanted to try to demonstrate is that the human being as the creator of his other human being is totally incapable of creating this wholeness which manifests the human being and I think that only comes from the other side from from God or the divine he and therefore I stressed his assemblage of the different body parts and putting it together and then tearing it apart again and I think this is one detail where his failure as a human being to create another human in comparison to this concept of God as the Creator who creates the human being asked a hole is most explicitly shown that's the same answer your question yeah okay are you coming maybe yeah - they're from assistants consistently man I guess the follow-up would simply be you know that one important reading of the novel like in Maryland Mother's editorial apparatus has been that the novel is deeply invested in and maybe even respectful of the insights of material science and so I'm wondering how we reconcile this idea of a kind of disdain with a piecemeal approach with some of the readings of Shelley's knowledge of and a sense of wonder at that that possibility but that may be something to talk about [Music] thank you for two to wonderful presentations I I was just looking back at the text and when Victor has its first conversation with the creature America cos he refers first creature as a devil to his face and then secondly at the violence act and I was thinking about insects in the imagery of the insect because beside it does seem as though I Viktor response to his creature first and kind of diabolical terms and theologically eclectic terms and secondly and biological scientific terms classifying him for the consent and other species altogether not even an animal right and I was wondering to what degree both of you think that Mary Shelley is trying to push readers to think about the ways in which science of the period and perhaps modern science in general dangerously pushes us to classify people too quickly and in that perhaps she in Victor makes the creature from different parts of animals and different species she was actually pushing us to think in a more posthuman direction and it actually embraced that and rather than take the Victor Frankenstein iam Groot I think that's an accident detail from from the novel he's first encounter with with that devilish satanic it is that isn't even human he explicitly says before creating this creature that he wants him to be like himself he he rejects this other because he doesn't look like himself and that is again this it is this whole project of AI and the other as long as it is similar enough to assimilate into the same or to me fine but you cannot make this step of accepting the other asset and other and nor does he make that step to say okay then this other turned out completely different from what I had expected now let me inquire into the other but that's the end he turns away I don't look at it I don't look into it doesn't reveal what about itself he closes his eyes and I think it is therefore so important that it all starts this visibility and through the visibility the other Matic would actually manifest itself for himself if he were willing to look in the spiritual sense suggested by Latinos the other could open up as a whole in his whole dimension of the other nets but he closes his eyes and says no different other I appalled he's fascinated with bugs and snakes and you know children can pick up a snake or a bug and find it absolutely fascinating beautiful and what I wonder is by spiritual perhaps Mary Shelley is awakening there you know in your arena kind of look at the other perhaps from chariot Mary Shelley's perspective that was a more childlike imagination mm-hm openness you know they're described as an insect at the beginning if I'm not mistaken I what I also think is interesting in this context of the sounds and the other that is mother the creature one's a female companion and he wants the female companion to be as deformed and disfigured and himself and along the lines of Erving Goffman who argues that you know in any deformed body is accepted and respected as the own because they share in the same category of deformity I think that is also a reason why Frankenstein eventually destroys like what happy is what he had started in the end of a female companion to him because for him that the author has meant to release his other to a companion who is also the other and that other would recognize his creature okay and now I mean I respond coming through pathways and I I don't know you but I have asked something my sense and why he was so much in a hungry who by creating these one creature creature you know it was actor this Christian for I don't know how long time three years ago and then he has to create it when it comes a time they had to bring all these pieces together you know it's just be quick you know just just use it big pieces much easier you know they define weird then after such a long span the message about the with corpses you know sleepless nights easy alright now let's finish it quickly I have big pieces obviously obviously she wanted that result obviously want you a creature they you know was perfect wasn't personally beautiful or handsome but one so I think that again even there you do have a couple of responses or maybe more one is yeah four meters you know the permeated the worry one says to show how good it is in large you know drive failure food everyone to humanity as quickly as possible so lots of narcissism yes the other one is a kind of Machiavellian answer no the end justify the means so that's not a fad a big a bit horrible I won't see the result display it is one point another point we're only in the way the creature could come out as we want to have Michelle wanted a creature that make us speak after 200 years you know figure what kind of creature and and it is true now all talking the other day with my friend de la Rosa we were you know considering how best how could it be best I mean this creature is perfect from anybody anything you want to contact and if you want to underline in terms of imperfection of abuses of authority of patriarchal living you know the creature is there to help you - he's an opponent is an opponent when I said no mother no father Indian macho is also apologize enough parents are not beautifully well what can we say about his lack of rice see the rise of political rights and human right and you think the way the perfect way really to create a creature they will not only keep us busy and has kept busy asking over they too are three a will be two hundred really wonderful papers only doctor I think suggesting on one one way the incredible closeness to the text be very rewarding in the other way very few I have a question which is sort of about the elephant in the room I think I think the problem with Lebanon is as Derrida who also I mean distinguished readings what the program for him was the theology and of course we have Shelley signing himself a sales and we have as well known within the novel the critique of Paradise Lost the maker who creates a miserable sinful damn etc section scepter abandons have an effect so I wonder about though I think I think I think they're in us is illuminate deep illuminating in ethically whether one doesn't have to say that what is interesting about the challenges or any enlightenment values in the way that Godwin himself did politically asked hard questions as it were the law but whether a very hard question about ethics in the Lebanon are sealed since illuminating as precisely because there is a theology there so I guess my question is how we read a normal like Frankenstein which I think it's very radical in many ways in the light of an ethics predicated on theology I think the very fact that Victor Frankenstein is presented as taking on and assuming user think the role of God the Creator and then miserably face in this act of creation implicitly points towards this other direction you know where in Lebanon in Lebanon sense the face of the other Esther place of God because that holiness cannot be created by a human being that is limited I quoted this communion offer his name is lee hye-in in which he attempts a comparison of living as ethics and on the one hand and San Buddhism on the other hand and I found it interesting because he manages beautifully to operate with the concept of emptiness in San Buddhism under one hand and living as ethics with the theology in the background but he makes the two positions convert without actually I mean using an authority in the sense of Levinas and for me that was a very enlightening approach because it simply shows that there is something beyond the human self power a force that really we cannot know that we cannot understand but that the human being seems to be directed towards or pointing pointing towards for me as Mary Shelley I mean of the creator Frankenstein fading in is that our creation does offer us whatever human is creation I mean if you live in Auschwitz lemme nasus as Jewish the election has a very specific kind of theology disappea allergy nonetheless and I say my question is really how do we how do we read and it I mean I think it's a question for everybody how do we how do we think about the other in ethical terms without predicating that some manifestation however intellect of a divine question what I mean I mean yes about a chemist a natural scientist said to me I am an atheist but if when I look at the wonder of the human being I know that as a chemist as a natural scientist is one billions particle of the human being were different the human being did not would not exist and he says and I can't explain that so for me that is this water that is open even with an atheist you know where does all this intricate nurse decoration of the human being come from and even an ACS like me originally when you have wondered or by means of creating this Victor Frankenstein who attempts to be God and created human being and miserably fails just chases this text as a statement of wonder so if it's not the human being that creates the human being who does for what does and maybe she just presented to us as a question mark not as an answer and that is in my eyes much more valuable and saying okay here is this my god and even like when I when I argue with Debbie nas as the face being had the trace of God and the fit me goat has to be invisible and if it is in particular because of the iconic transformation Jewish religion and so the face is not visible in that sense because as he says you know ethics is a spiritual optics I need to see this thing and it's with my interior eye and that was a common thing in romantic romanticism you know to see the other that AC sees sees the creature precisely in the way that the creature is supposed to being seen but not with his physical eyes and that's a common detail is a lot of authors also Victor you go for example about with the novel the man who lives where we have gives a statement when and the girl yeah she is behind here is totally disfigured especially in his face she moves her fingers across his face and she concludes when plane must be a happy man because she reached his greatness as an internal smile is constantly smiling and that's the kind of seeing it is suggested by my reading the text briefly thinking how is her seat with them I find that militia is no better always have that strong presence of God and certainly of ethics and and I find it now through the minority cultures and characters that have always to fight against society they are rejected by general somehow I'm thinking about mandragora in America and all the people living in the wood you know the Alpha laws but which is but well she let us know is how important for them would be would have been if only people could feel sympathy pain understanding and in in in Frankenstein Frankenstein find the most effective find this kind of meeting more than with it creator every crater with his divine creator because after all the body tis true they've been put together is that much work but even such word of living species now that it created by in in the meeting when when the most Amit's nature is just amazing how how is completely plunged into the womb of nature and this reminds I think you as well as myself about Wollstonecraft the lecture from Scandinavia how incredibly passionate because her aesthetic discourse they often border whose beyond pure aesthetic painter in 26 and and I find that you know there is a lot of recollects of line that goes through then the question is was that dimension is a believer of course she started as a believer but all I know when I retreat journey through Italy especially after the death of Claire and William and while she was in peace as you want Mass regularly which is strange sorry this was some suggested by some of the things that we would say the beginning of her her paper especially about what you might call the UM the problem of normalcy and it seems to me I mean he was saying that Baba see the normal sets the fame that they have but it seems to be possible to see the dragon stein as a kind of drama or the normalcy because the problem is that nor the sheen and the Apple cannot share the same space and so that's true even though physical terms and in linguistic terms so in physical terms one of the effects is that the attempt to stabilize a space which the abnormal can inhabit turns into an endless circular pursuit an endless battle orb of light which is available also of issues of um facial disfigurement which was service issue also with the with the second people and uh I don't know how many people don't believe it most do that the young the military authorities have an enormous problem with facial disfigurements I mean with all what other distinct events then it's possible to stabilize in some sense think the process is a compensation crisis is a prosthesis so on and so forth not so the facial disfigurement weather all sorts of issues or from a choice which the wounded person has for himself to domain and of course has always been burger G there as to whether ways of handling facial disfigurement are for the self or for the other is this meant to me to make you feel better as you walk out one morning with your face in a mess always it meant to make other people feel better because they don't have to see you that's an endless vendor from police I think but also long we'll see and in linguistic terms just allowed not that I was struck in the passages that you showed on the screen how often the negative terms and deformity disfigurement pops up and of course we're in the context now I suppose the two talks are showing some sense enough this ability all those negative terms also ways of not being able to share the same space as it were with that which is outside the field of normalcy however that's going to start in just a moment I think that Mary Shelley by having a Victor Frankenstein clicked facially disfigured creature I think that's also a strong comment because if you imagine you're encountering a defeated face it's no longer possible to meet that face in the matter as suggested by lammeter because maybe one half is completely disfigured and he cannot move in the sense that the motions and the features that are expressed by that face can be read in the sense that was suggested by avatar and in that connection while what I also found interesting in my research on Avatar I came across a comment that said that lava turn left to study the faces of corpses because he hated the face in motion because he could not fix his interpretation of the face because it changes and that are at the next minute the face might express a different kind of condition and different state of being a different kind of emotion he wanted that which he saw to be frozen in time and I think that relates to Victor Frankenstein who is horrified as soon as the face is in motion because it also expresses this the face is beyond my control and then and also you have that was with any encounters between racially distinct people and normal-looking people that the reading of that face becomes a challenge that cannot be met in those terms we're out of time sadly so I'd like to thank the speakers very much [Applause]

Channel: Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study University of Notre Dame

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Id: ADzvAnyqiZ0

Length: 89min 30sec (5370 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2020