1. MP 3 Journal # 6: Frankenstein Introduction CRISPR
Thematically, among other things, Frankenstein deals with the ethics and consequences of scientific discovery and application of that discovery… Within the last few years, a groundbreaking discovery was made in the field of Genetic Engineering: The CRISPR/Cas prokaryotic immune system, which has the potential to vastly simplify the process of gene editing! What do you think about our experiments with Genetic Manipulation so far as described in the video? Do you agree with the point of view in the video? Do you think use of CRISPR technology as described is inevitable? Is right? Is it progress? What limits, if any, should be placed on the use of this capability? Why? Where do you see the future going with this technology?

2. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
By Mary Shelley

3. Prometheus (cont’d) Theme = stealing power away from the Gods (God)
Is this what science is doing?

4. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Mary Shelley

5. When?
In the summer of 1816, 19 year old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and her lover, the poet Percy Shelley, visited the Lord Byron at his villa beside Lake Geneva in Switzerland.

6. The Motivation
Stormy weather frequently forced them indoors, where they and Byron's other guests sometimes read from a volume of ghost stories. One evening, Byron challenged his guests to each write one themselves. Mary's story, inspired by a dream, became Frankenstein.

7. Her Family’s Influence
Her father, William Godwin,was a political thinker and writer.
Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was a feminist.

8. Her Love – Percy Shelley
Met when she was 15.
He was married. 1st wife drowned.
They married two years later. She had already had 2 of his children by this time.
He was a famous poet.

9. The Pre-Hippies
They were into nature, free love, and were not particulary bound by Christian ideals
Absinthe and opium
Shelley even had a mistress Jane Clairmont
Jane later became involved with Lord Byron and that’s how Mary and Percy met him.

10. A Suspicious Death Shelley’s first wife died by drowning.
When she was found, resuscitation was attempted - smelling salts, vigorous shaking, electricity, and artificial respiration--using resuscitation bellows were used.
These were all methods that had been used since the 1760s to revive drowning victims to life.
Harriet, however, did not survive.

11. What was Science Up to at this Point?
During Mary’s time, scientists and physicians were fascinated by the elusive boundary between life and death.
Experimented with lower organisms, performed human anatomical studies, attempted to resuscitate drowning victims, and performed experiments using electricity to restore life to the recently dead.

12. The Romantic Period 1798-1832 Follows the Restoration and the 18th c.
Anglo-Saxon……
Middle Ages ……
Renaissance ……
Restoration and 18th c
Romantic Period ……

13. Romantic Period: Science
Science = natural philosophy
Philosophy of the natural world
Philosophy = study of rational thought

14. Romantic Period: Science
Charles Darwin – published Origin of Species 1859 (natural selection; genetic variation)
30 years after Shelley wrote Frankenstein

15. Science/Natural Philosophy
Major strides in anatomy and chemistry
Science really begins unlocking the secrets of the natural world

16. Mid 1780s Italian physician Luigi Galvani
Animal Electricity
This illustration, from Galvani’s De Viribus Electricitatis in Motu Musculari, published in 1791, shows the experimental setup Galvani used to study the effect of atmospheric electricity on dead frogs. Galvani named this newly discovered force “animal electricity,” and thus laid foundations for the modern fields of electrophysiology and neuroscience.
Mid 1780s Italian physician Luigi Galvani

17. Dr. Erasmus Drawin
“Erasmus Darwin's name is to be found in the first sentence of the Preface to Frankenstein as an authority who thinks that the central event of the story – Victor Frankenstein's animation of his creature – is ‘of not impossible occurrence'. Darwin, of course, died in 1802 and therefore could not have read Frankenstein and given his opinion as to its probability.”

18. The Baby and The Dream Mary’s daughter had died.
Mary dreamed that her daughter was brought back to life through vigorous rubbing and being held near a warm fire.
This inspired her to write Frankenstein.

19. More Bad News Her sister committed suicide
Her son (William) died from malaria
Her daughter next daughter died from dysentery.
Lots of bad luck!!!

20. Mary’s Contest Submission
Not intended to be a tale of the supernatural – she even made her main character a scientist so that his building of a man would seem logical.
Was a combo of Gothic elements and science
Is considered early sci-fi

21. The Structure of the Story
The novel is constructed of three concentric layers, one within the other:
outermost--Robert Walton's letters to his sister;
middle--Frankenstein's story as he tells it to Walton;
innermost--Monster's description to Frankenstein of the development of his mind at the deLaceys'.

22. Modern Prometheus Prometheus was the son of a Titan
the name means "forethought.“
In the battle between Zeus and the Titans for control of Olympus he sided with Zeus and became his chief counselor. 

23. Don’t Irritate a god
Tricked Zeus into a ternally claiming the inedible parts of cows and bulls for the sacrificial ceremonies of the gods, while conceding the nourishing parts to humans for the eternal benefit of humankind.
Ticked Zeus off
Zeus denied man fire

24. Things go from bad to worse
Prometheus stole fire
Zeus gets mega-ticked
Chains him to rock and lets birds devour his liver
Liver grew back every night.
Next day, same deal. Not fun 

25. Another Version
the fire stolen by Prometheus was also the fire of life with which he animated his men of clay.
Doesn’t this seem even more Frankensteinish??

26. Moral of the Story??? Don’t irritate the gods Moral of our story?????
Don’t play God?

27. Paradise Lost – Referenced Often
Paradise Lost is John Milton's attempt to "justify the ways of God to man" by retelling of the story of Creation, the revolt of Lucifer and his fall from grace, and the story of Adam and Eve.

28. 3/27/14

29. Synthetic Life
This is "a major step towards being able to design completely novel organisms," says Todd Kuiken of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. "The research team has created what some might call the first synthetic cell that was designed, built and reproduced without a host cell present," he says, by .

30. Synthetic Life

31. 3D Bioprinting

32. GM-Food

33. CRISPR-A game-changing genetic engineering technique

34. Artificial Intelligence

35. Frankenstein’s influence

36. HW
Frankenstein: Read Author’s Intro. and Preface (xxiii-xxx) and Letters 1-4 and Chapters 1-2 (1-27). (Due Monday 3/20/2017)