Stella's Critical Annotated Webliography

Question 3: Frankenstein continues to occupy the popular imagination as a monstrous scientist. Analyze some of the ways in which Frankenstein haunts discussion of recent technologies.


Mary Shelley created a novel so profound in its themes that its prose and force has survived for almost 200 years. This epic novel that would become an immortal favorite in literary, academic, and entertainment circles that even today is the basis of nightmares, horror films and even a few comedy films. The themes of Frankenstein have been cited as inspirational to thousands of medical professionals. By reading Shelley in the context of present technologically advanced times, her tale of monstrous creation provides a very gruesome caution. For today, it is not merely a human being the sciences are lusting blindly to bring to life, but rather to generate something potentially even more dangerous and horrifying with implications that could endanger the entire world and human population.

Brian P. Bloomfield and Theo Vurdubakis’s article started with useful points for my discussion, as it outlines the significance of the notion that reproductive technology provided a new discursive register for social debates nowadays. The authors offer valid examples and cases on the potential of scientific knowledge to generate and uphold new forms of social organization. For instance, the "biological interventions" that indicated by Haldane's paper, Daedalus, or Science and the Future within the article, showing how the reproductive technology transforms the entire society and sets out to outline how this is expected to rewrite the logic of the social order. He said, “on the influence of biology on history during the 20th century”, the paper argued that the future of society would be shaped more and more by biological knowledge and its applications, just as in the past physics and chemistry had been the driving force of change. He thought that ‘A world where parents could effect any improvement they chose upon the gene pool, shaping each generation as desired "from increased output of first-class music to.... decreased convictions for theft". The author then quoted the Alvin Toffler’s expectation in Future Shock (1971), accounting "new genetic knowledge will permit us to tinker with human heredity and manipulate genes to create altogether new versions of man."

The second essay is from Mr. Roboto . I would like to use this short article of him to continue discuss the trend that modern people are more likely to develop the reproductive technologies. It is not only the reproduction upon the animals, like, the cloned sheep Dolly, but also having the trend towards human beings. In this article, the author shows a real example of a Los Angeles clinic that offering parents a chance to moderate their future babies via genetic manipulation. As Mr. Roboto said, “The technique, called preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), allows parents and doctors to screen out potential gene-borne diseases and other “defects,” but soon could be used to increase the chance of a baby to have certain “choice” attributes like height, hair color, and even IQ. This genetic screening can also offer the parents to “choose” the gender of the baby. Following that, the author listed out the disadvantages of the ‘Frankenstein-baby’ and indicates that the machines may change over our life.

Brian P.Bloomfield, and Theo Vurdubakis examine more closely on how the socio-moral dilemmas associated with new technological developments in the late twentieth centuries. It is an article that can provide effective debates over developments in reproduction technology to offer some observations on the ways in which such technologies routinely become enmirred in cultural ambivalence. They focus on the use of chimerical figures such as the ‘Designer Baby’ or the ‘Human Clone’ as metaphors for the power of the new technologies to re-make both society and the body. Meanwhile, the authors use the example of the well-known successful ‘cloning’ of an adult sheep by scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland in 1997 as the case studies for the discussion. The authors draw a conclusion that the fantasies of self-creation, the ‘designer baby’ and the human clone are functioning as symbols of a new era of ontological insecurity. Post-natural bodies can represent the joyful opening of new possibilities, but simultaneously generate effects of anxiety, disorientation and revulsion to the society. It is quite critical to say if we should continue the reproductive technologies process as it is true that the raises of the spectre of human values has inexorably weakened by this techno-scientific advance.

The fourth essay is from Alisa Burn . She clearly produced valid instances for the essay to imply the disadvantages of enjoying the advanced technology in the aspect of human’s daily life. Other than that, she indicates the notion that the potential for disaster is very real when we are taking the power of our minds and placing it into machines that have the ability to act in ways that exceed our own abilities. She offers a detail account for the advanced technologies that we are all blinded by the seemingly beneficial qualities of this growing use of it, naively becoming more and more dependent upon this very powerful creation. Burn uses the updated electronic “smart” machines (or we can say, essential machines in our daily life), like the TVs, PCs, and pocket planners, to show that we are more likely to dependent on the machines. It is true that they make life simple and naively we seem to maintain that we are master over this immense power, when the role is shifting as we become more and more attached to the perks technology seems to offer every day.

Wheeler wrote a blog called ‘Frankenstein VS Cloning – Man: Created or Creator’ to compare the similarity of the Frankenstein and cloning. However, she used a very different angle upon the discussion, that is, viewed it in a religious perspective. The author first defined the meaning of cloning, which is, referring to the DNA and the reproductive cloning nowadays. The process creates copies of DNA or cells to create organism whereas Frankenstein assembled the body ingredients into new specie. Meanwhile, Wheeler stated his opposite point of view of the Christians. She claimed that the cloning process is practiced like what the Frankenstein scientist did – human tries to take God’s place. The cloning, that is, the reproductive technology, is taken place in an unnatural way that violated the principles and morality of human beings.

From all the above, the discussion about Frankenstein is mainly related to the fear between humanity and technology. Most of the sources used Frankenstein as a metaphor to illustrate the problem of modern science and technologies such as reproductive technology and cloning. Topics about moral issues, humanity and religion are also being discussed accordingly. Frankenstein myth and its theme of the dangers of science and technologies do consist of unknown number of risks. It obviously makes life simper but at the same time it destroys the natural way of reproduction, as well as shifted the power of our minds to the electronic appliances. It is true that human life is indeed on top of the manipulation of science and technologies, but what we can do, is to strive a balance between the dilemmas that we are facing and the science-techno development with our principles and morality.



References

Bloomfield.P. B., Vurdubakis. T. (2006) ‘Re-Engineering the Human: New Reproductive Technologies and the Specter of’ Frankenstein’ http://www.waset.org/ijss/v1/v1-1-4.pdf (accessed on March 1,2009)

Bloomfield.P. B., Vurdubakis. T. (2003) ‘The Curse of Frankenstein: Visions of Technology and Society in the Debate over New Reproductive Technologies.’ http://72.14.235.132/search?q=cache:UGNkRbDgvVAJ:www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/publications/viewpdf/000215/+Frankenstein+and+haunted+Technologies&hl=zh-TW&ct=clnk&cd=104 (accessed on 20 March 2009)

Burns. A. (2002) ‘Frankenstein of the Future’ http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/frank.comment4.html (accessed on March 20, 2009)

Roboto, (2009) ‘Designer Babies, Only in L.A. (for now)’ (March 4, 2009) Cyberpunkreview.http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/news-as-cyberpunk/designer-babies-only-in-la-for-now/ (accessed on March 4,2009)


Wheeler, H. (2007). ‘Frankenstein vs. Cloning – Man: Created or Creator.’ (June 21, 2007) Harmonious Glow Writings. http://harmoniousglow.blogspot.com/2007/06/frankenstein-vs-cloning-man-created-or.html (accessed on 20 March 2009)