Frankenstein in Theory

Orrin N. C. Wang teaches English and Comparative Literature at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA. He is the author of Fantastic Modernity: Dialectical Readings in Romanticism and Theory (1996) and Romantic Sobriety: Sensation, Revolution, Commodification, History, winner of the 2011 Jean-Pierre Barricelli Prize.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Frankenstein in Theory Orrin N. C. Wang (University of Maryland, College Park, USA) 1. Last Words: Voice, Gesture, and the Remains of Frankenstein David L. Clark (McMaster University, Canada)2. When Jane Met Mary; or, Frankenstein’s Romantic ComedySonia Hofkosh (Tufts University, USA)3. Frankenstein's Embodied Imagination: Or, the Limits of Embodied CognitionRichard C. Sha (American University, USA)4. Non-Binary Frankenstein?Chris Washington (Francis Marion University, USA) 5. What's Love Got to Do with It? Frankenstein and Monstrous PsychoanalysisJoel Faflak (University of Western Ontario, Canada) 6. The "very creature he creates": Frankenstein in the Making of Moby-DickSamuel Otter (University of California, Berkeley, USA) 7. Finitude, Frames, and the Plot of FrankensteinYoon Sun Lee (Wellesley College, USA) 8. Blackness and Anthropogenesis in FrankensteinRei Terada (University of California, Irvine, USA) 9. Mediating Monstrosity: Media, Information, and Mary Shelley’s FrankensteinAndrew Burkett (Union College, USA)10. "A daemon whom I had myself created": Race, Frankenstein, and MonsteringPatricia A. Matthew (Montclair State University, USA)11. The Smiles That One Is Owed: Justice, Justine, and Sympathy for a WretchErin M. Goss (Clemson University, USA)12. The Utopias of FrankensteinVivasvan Soni (Northwestern University, USA) 13. Is That All There Is? No Regrets (after 1818)Jacques Khalip (Brown University, USA)14. Frankenstein in Practice (as Theory)Sara Guyer (University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA) Notes on ContributorsIndex

A sense of urgency runs through all these essays, persuading us that Frankenstein and his monster matter now. It’s not just that present crises help us think anew about Shelley’s novel, or that it continually challenges the theories we employ. This provocative collection makes the case that Frankenstein compels us to think rigorously about our historical present.