First-Year Book Project sparks communitywide Frankenstein fever

By Franklin Crawford

Forget the flat-topped, rheumy-eyed giant with the zombie shuffle and the rigor-mortis grin. That's kid stuff. This is the real thing: Frankenstein, the book, written by an 18-year-old Englishwoman named Mary Shelley in 1816. And Cornell and the entire Ithaca community are in on it.

Provost Biddy Martin and Vice Provost Isaac Kramnick discuss the First-Year Book Project on a video that can be accessed at http://www.news.cornell.edu/frankenstein/frankensteinNS1links.html. Academic Technology Center/CIT

More than 3,500 first-year students at Cornell, as well as many faculty, staff and continuing students, are delving into Shelley's Gothic horror story in preparation for what promises to be a compelling academic rite of passage. Monster panels, talks, seminars and sermons, monster book groups, monster plays, movies and maybe even a monster ball have all spun out of Cornell's First-Year Book Project, overseen by Provost Biddy Martin and Isaac Kramnick, vice provost for undergraduate education, and sponsored by the Provost's Office.

Several web sites are available to the Cornell community on the book project and they are listed at a comprehensive site -- http://www.book.sas.cornell.edu/ -- created by the university's Student and Academic Services staff, under the direction of Assistant Vice President David Yeh.

From talks at Cornell titled "Frankenstein and Contemporary Bio-Ethical Issues" and "Love Your Monster" to "Monster Mondays" for kids at the Tompkins County Public Library, there will be an intellectually bracing breeze in the Ithaca air this autumn.

Together with their entering classmates, professors and continuing students, new Cornell students will discuss, criticize and evaluate the book at two required campus events during the university's Orientation Week: a large group symposium Sunday, Aug. 25, in Barton Hall and small group discussions Monday, Aug. 26, around campus. Time-Warner Cable will provide live TV coverage of the Barton Hall panel on Channel 16. And a faculty member will lead each small group discussion with the assistance of an upper-class student. When classes begin, many new students also will have the opportunity to write about some aspect of the book in their first-year writing seminars.

Frankenstein was chosen for this year's book project, Provost Martin said, because: "We wanted a book that raised important questions and appealed to students and faculty from the entire range of academic disciplines. We hoped to identify a literary classic that had important implications for science and ethics. ... The book invites reflection on a number of issues, both historical and contemporary, in the sciences, social sciences and humanities -- from concerns about cloning and other technologies to questions about creativity and the nature of our humanity."

Cornell has given 750 copies of Frankenstein to the county library, and the books are available for borrowing from all area libraries and reading centers. Another 600 copies of the university's specially annotated Norton Critical Edition of the book have been distributed to area high schools.

The traveling exhibition "Frankenstein -- Penetrating the Secrets of Nature," developed by the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health for the American Library Association, will visit the Tompkins County Public Library Oct. 2 through Nov. 17, during which Cornell faculty members will offer free community lectures. Area ministers are preparing sermons on issues raised by the book, a communitywide reading is under way and even Cornell trustees and reunion classes are joining in on the project.

Staff at Cornell's Olin Library have created a Frankenstein exhibit outside Libe Café in the library's lobby, organized by reference librarian Lance Heidig. Katherine Reagan, curator of rare books for the library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, also is organizing a display in Kroch Library that includes the library's original 1818 edition of Shelley's Frankenstein.

In September the Cornell Interactive Theatre Ensemble will present a related series exploring the concepts of inclusion, exclusion and the "other," aimed at deepening the learning experiences linking the intellectual ideas of Shelley's book with day-to-day student and academic life.

The project also will feature a multidisciplinary lecture series by Cornell faculty, titled Monster Talks.

Here's a roundup of Frankenstein events at Cornell and a selection of events in the Ithaca community:

Cornell events

• Moderator: Provost Biddy Martin, professor of German and women's studies.

Panelists and their topics:

• Stephen Hilgartner, associate professor of science and technology studies, "The Crowd on the Slope: Frankenstein and Contemporary Bio-ethical Issues";
• Molly Hite, professor of English, "Love Your Monster";
• Vice Provost Isaac Kramnick, the Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government, "The Enlightenment: Progress and Science";
• Larry Palmer, professor of law, "Justice: The Monster and Victor Frankenstein";
• Robert Richardson, vice provost for research and the Floyd R. Newman Professor of Physics, "A Frankenstein Experiment."

Monster Talks
Wednesday evenings, 8:30-9:30 p.m., in the Robert Purcell Community Center auditorium on the following dates:

• Sept. 18: James Adams, associate professor of English, "Bringing Up Monsters: Frankenstein and Education";
• Oct. 9: Jeffrey Doyle, the Hays and James Clark Director of the Office of Undergraduate Biology and professor of plant biology, "Mutants, Hopeful Monsters, Chimeras and Frankenfoods";
• Oct. 30: Glenn Altschuler, dean of the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions and the Litwin Professor of American Studies, "Monsters in American Popular Culture";
• Nov. 20: Brett de Bary, director of the Visual Studies Program and professor of Asian studies, "27 Lives of the Lizard King: Technology, Geopolitics and Godzilla."

Frankenstein Fridays
Cornell Cinema will host a series of Frankenstein and Frankenstein-related movies -- some serious, some just for fun -- on Fridays.

Visit the Cornell News Service's Frankenstein web site at http://www.news.cornell.edu/frankenstein/frankensteinNS1intro.html for more information.

Community events at the Tompkins County Public Library

• Frankenstein -- Penetrating the Secrets of Nature: The traveling exhibit opens Sept. 30. An opening reception and tour of the exhibition will be held the week of Oct. 7. The reception includes a talk by David A. Kirby, a visiting scholar in Cornell's Department of Science and Technology Studies, and Susan E. Lederer, medical historian at the Yale University School of Medicine, curator of the national exhibit, will lead the tour.
• Monster Mondays: Theme programs for kids, 7 and older, each Monday at 4 p.m., Oct. 7-Nov. 24.
• Virtual Science: On Wednesday, Oct. 23, at 7 p.m., teenagers from area schools will converge at the library and log onto the Finger Lakes Library System's traveling computer lab. The online world, SciCenter, is hosted by the Cornell Theory Center (CTC) and features an exhibit on Jumping Genes, a naturally occurring form of genetic mutation more formally known as transposable elements. The students will "walk," "run" and "fly" around the virtual world, exploring content and interacting with museum exhibits developed by Cornell undergraduates and high school students, under the direction of Margaret Corbit, outreach and public relations manager at CTC.
• Community Forum: On Thursday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m., a community forum on artificial intelligence, hosted by Gary Stewart, Cornell assistant director of community relations, will include the Cornell RoboCup soccer team, Big Red.