Mary Shelley's Frankenstein celebrates its 200th anniversary this year, and it is arguably more relevant than ever. In his preface to the 1992 edition of Shelley's classic work, Maurice Hindle notes that the novel, subtitled The Modern Prometheus, blends two mythical narratives, that of Prometheus as the Titan provocateur who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to humankind for their survival, and that of Prometheus as a "plasticator, a figure who creates and manipulates men into life". Both story lines (...) are directly relevant to the modern practice of biological research, especially to embryology and to germ-line experimentation.Shelley conceived Frankenstein in Switzerland, having been... (shrink)

For three centuries the primary aspiration of Western governments has been constant economic growth but with the Industrial Revolution this objective became troublesome. In the 20thcentury unprecedented levels of industrial production and social consumption caused palpable harm to humans and the environment. Hannah Arendt and John Kenneth Galbraith turned their pens to such concerns and Bill Mollison and David Holmgren advocated a permaculture approach to growth, one that strives to limit human interference in natural growth processes. Today’s precarious economic and (...) ecological imbalances could be stabilized by a shift in applied growth paradigms, from capitalist to permaculturist.Depuis trois siècles, les gouvernements occidentaux aspirent à une croissance économique constante. À la suite de la Revolution industrielle, cet objectif est devenu troublant. Au cours du 20e siècle, les niveaux de production et de consommation sans précédent sont devenus manifestement malsains pour les êtres humains et dangereux pour l’environnement. Hannah Arendt et John Kenneth Galbraith se sont intéressés à ce sujet. De même, Bill Mollison et David Holmgren ont recommandé d’appliquer à la croissance économique une stratégie semblable à la permaculture, qui cherche à limiter l’intervention humaine dans les processus naturels de croissance. Les circonstances écologiques et économiques précaires d’aujourd’hui pourraient être stabilisées par un virage appliqué d’un modèle capitaliste à un modèle permaculturiste. (shrink)