The nineteenth century witnessed a huge paradigm shift when Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published in 1859. What had previously been championed by few scientists, the theory of evolution, started a huge public debate and a crisis of faith among a nation that was already being transformed by the Industrial Revolution. In this seminar, we will examine changing attitudes towards humanity, ethical responsibility and biological design through the prism of fantastic literature, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896).
Please buy either the Penguin Classics or Oxford World’s Classics edition of both texts. A reader with additional material will be made available in the copy-shop at Reckhammerweg. Students are expected to read Frankenstein for the first session. |
