Fantasy Worlds: A Day of Talks

Mary Shelley, Uprisings and Rebellions

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Fantasy Worlds: A Day of Talks
Mary Shelley, Uprisings and Rebellions

Part of Fantasy Worlds: A Day of Talks

How Frankenstein paved the way for generations of marginalised voices in fiction

This illustrated lecture traces the roots of Mary Shelley’s writing in traditions of myth, fantasy, and romance, and shows how she inspired a creative efflorescence of genres through her novels Frankenstein (1818) and The Last Man (1826) and her short story "The Invisible Girl" (1832-33). Eileen Hunt explores the post-apocalyptic, feminist and anti-racist literatures — often articulated by the marginalised voices of women and Black writers — that have flowed from these pioneering dystopian and gothic texts.

Speakers

Eileen Hunt

Academic

Eileen Hunt is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. Her interests cover modern political thought, feminism, the family, rights, ethics of technology, and philosophy and literature.

Her books include Family Feuds: Wollstonecraft, Burke, and Rousseau on the Transformation of the Family (SUNY, 2006); Wollstonecraft, Mill, and Women's Human Rights (Yale, 2016); Mary Shelley and the Rights of the Child: Political Philosophy in 'Frankenstein' (Penn Press, 2018), Artificial Life After Frankenstein (Penn Press, 2021) which won the David Easton Award for "a book that broadens the horizons of contemporary political science by engaging issues of philosophical significance in political life."

Her newest work is The First Last Man: Mary Shelley and the Post-Apocalyptic Imagination (forthcoming 2024).

Headshot of Eileen Hunt