'Even if they were to leave Europe': Frankenstein in Tasmania
RIS ID
76186
Abstract
Since the early nineteenth century, Mary Shelley'S Frankenstein has served as a narrative model for those writing of science and ambition. For example, a contemporary journalist trying to explain the modus operandi of biologist and science entrepreneur J. Craig Venter, who was involved in the first sequencing of the human genome and was leader ofthe first team to create a cell with a synthetic genome, turned to the protagonist of Shelley'S 1818 novel as a point of reference for a description of his subject:
If only Victor Frankenstein had some media savvy, he might have been J. Craig Venter. Rather than living in dread of his appalling creature, he could have assembled a panel of bioethicists and theologians to bless it, applied for a Swiss government grant to research it, and hired an investment bank to explore an initial public offering - FrankenCell Inc. - to exploit the results of his research. (Mooney online)
Publication Details
Dale, L. (2012). 'Even if they were to leave Europe': Frankenstein in Tasmania. Kunapipi: journal of postcolonial writing, 34 (2), 93-101.