Two hundred years ago, 20-year-old Mary Shelley published her novel Frankenstein, a tale of ambition, family, and murderous revenge. The story, which resonates today, ostensibly made the writer the mother of gothic horror and science fiction. This fall, UCSB’s Carsey-Wolf Center will pay homage to her story by hosting Frankenstein: Afterlives, a six-day film and discussion series consisting of features that range from a 1970s American cult classic to a masterpiece of Spanish cinema to a modern Mary Shelley biopic, aptly capturing the depth and breadth of Frankenstein’s enduring legacy.
Screened in UCSB’s Pollock Theater, each of the films will be followed by a conversation moderated by film and social science experts, including UCSB English professor Julie Carlson. Carlson, who will lead the Q&A for the biopic Mary Shelley, which premiered last spring at the Tribeca Film Festival, has studied the author extensively in her career, noting that Frankenstein is of great relevance for multidisciplinary studies of ethics and humanity. “We have a tendency in popular culture and in the academy to polarize science and humanities,” Carlson said. “[Frankenstein] shows their convergences.”
It is in this vein that the series is crafted and that Carlson organized a Frankenstein-centric, interdisciplinary conference, which takes place October 25. As a supplement to Frankenstein: Afterlives, Carlson hopes the forum will give insight into how a monster story has been on the minds and drawing boards of engineers, writers, sociologists, and filmmakers alike for the past two centuries.