Frankenstein and Genetics: Editing Bodies, Editing Texts

Prof. Elisa Beshero-Bondar (English), and Prof. Olivia Long (Biochemistry) each discuss Frankenstein and genetic editing from the points of view of digital literary studies and the field of human genetics. Each faculty member will speak for 20 minutes, followed by a period of discussion and debate. Prof. Beshero-Bondar’s work on the Pittsburgh Bicentennial Frankenstein Project is to illuminate with computational methods the genetic story of this novel–how much its characters and language changed from its inception in the manuscript notebooks digitized by the Shelley-Godwin Archive to the forms it took in publication. She will also address how the body of the Frankenstein novel has posed a challenge for digital representation since the inception of the worldwide web in the 1990s.  Professor Long will speak of gene editing and a brand new technology called “Crisper” which is essentially being expounded as the “Frankenstein” of science, and how our response to the editing of human bodies may be rooted in the Frankenstein novel and cultural percetions of it. Following the two presentations, the presenters and students will engage in faculty-moderated discussion of a full range of issues associated with textual and human genetics.