Theodore Roszak's compelling parable, The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein, provides an (eco)-feminist view of the “Night of the Living Dead Model” and suggests that only the equal union of “masculine” and “feminine” energies will help us resolve the current eco-crisis. This article further explores the consequences of the highly masculinized post-Enlightenment rationalism as demonstrated in Roszak's novel. Although this article agrees that there is a dangerous imbalance between natural/spiritual and scientific/rational viewpoints, it also stresses that the extreme genderification of these (...) energies is potentially problematic. (shrink)

Two hundred years after it was first published, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the modern Prometheus remains relevant. This novel has endured because of its literary merits and because its themes lend themselves to analysis from multiple viewpoints. Scholars from many disciplines have examined this work in relation to controversial scientific research. In this paper, we review the academic literature where Frankenstein is used to discuss ethics, bioethics, science, technology and medicine. We searched the academic literature and carried out a content (...) analysis of articles discussing the novel and films derived from it, analyzing the findings qualitatively and quantitatively. We recorded the following variables: year and language of publication, whether it referred to the novel or to a film, the academic discipline in which it was published, and the topics addressed in the analysis. Our findings indicate that the scientific literature on Frankenstein focuses mainly on science and the personality of the scientist rather than on the creature the scientist created or ethical aspects of his research. The scientist’s responsibility is central to the ethical interest of Frankenstein; this issue entails both the motivation underlying the scientist’s acts and the consequences of these acts. (shrink)