JOURNAL ARTICLE

Of Sexbots, Cyborgs and Artificial Intelligence: Articulations of the Posthuman Subject in Jeanette Winterson's Frankissstein: A Love Story.

  • Published In: Pólemos (2035-5262), 2023, v. 17, n. 1. P. 89 1 of 3

  • Database: Humanities Source Ultimate 2 of 3

  • Authored By: Onega, Susana 3 of 3

Abstract

Jeanette Winterson's latest novel, Frankissstein: A Love Story (2019), was written as a contribution to the world-wide celebrations of the second centenary of the publication of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Evincing the characteristic excessiveness and parodic stance of the postmodern romance, it alternates two interlocked story lines. The first, narrated by Mary Shelley, is situated during her own life span and populated by Mary herself, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, John William Polidori and Claire Clairmont. The second, situated in 2018, is narrated by Dr Ry Shelley, a transgender medical doctor who sells body parts to Prof. Victor Stein, a cutting-edge researcher in Artificial Intelligence. The essay argues that for all its parodic doubleness, temporal circularity, thematic enmeshment and palimpsestic structure, the novel draws a clear-cut distinction between the Idealist conception of subjectivity endorsed by the male Romantic poets that leads to Prof. Stein's transmodern conception of a future universe colonised by bodiless enhanced humans, and Mary Shelley's affectively charged conception of embodied subjectivity that foreruns Ry Shelley's posthuman conception of fluid subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additional Information

  • Source:Pólemos (2035-5262). 2023/04, Vol. 17, Issue 1, p89
  • Document Type:Article
  • Subject Area:History
  • Publication Date:2023
  • ISSN:20355262
  • DOI:10.1515/pol-2023-2006
  • Accession Number:163635365
  • Copyright Statement:Copyright of Pólemos (2035-5262) is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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