With filming for the new Netflix Frankenstein series bringing international attention to north-east Scotland, the University of Aberdeen is shining its own spotlight on Mary Shelley's enduring creation with a public event exploring the boundary between science and fiction.
As part of the ongoing Fear and Fascination exhibition programme, writer and science communicator Dr Kathryn Harkup will delve into the real science that inspired Shelley’s Gothic masterpiece.
Her talk, Making the Monster Frankenstein – Science Fiction or Science Fact?! on November 19 will be the highlight of the University’s celebrations for Book Week Scotland.
Dr Harkup will take the audience through the real ‘mad science,’ which captured the imaginations of the public and author alike, in the decades before the 1818 publication of Shelly’ much loved novel.
The huge advances in the understanding of science from electricity to physiology – and the sensational demonstrations which accompanied them – ignited public fascination and newspapers were full of lurid tales of murderers and resurrectionists.
Harkup will explore stories from artificial life and experimental surgery, to 'monsters' and electrical experiments on human cadavers, detailing the science and scientists that influenced Shelley and inspired her most famous creation.
She will also consider the historical parallels with and modern questions about life creation and ethics.
Dr Harkup said: “Mary Shelley's masterpiece Frankenstein is an incredible insight into the fear and fascination of the scientific advances of the age. The novel demonstrates Shelley's fantastic breadth of knowledge not just about science but the ethics and morals of scientific pursuits. It is a brilliant work that still resonates and makes us question today.”
Those attending the free event in the Sir Duncan Rice Library will also be able to take in the University’s latest exhibition Fear & Fascination in the Collections Gallery on the ground floor.
Showcasing rare eighteenth- and nineteenth-century texts including The Castle of Otranto (1764), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), and M. R. James’s Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), the exhibition explores why we are simultaneously terrified and thrilled by the Gothic imagination. Visitors can step into an immersive creative space, uncover literary tropes of terror, or relax in a cosy Victorian-style reading room.
Making the Monster: Frankenstein – Science Fiction or Science Fact?! will be held on November 19 from 6.30pm to 7.30pm at the Sir Duncan Rice Library, Bedford Road. Reserve your place.