Frankenstein — Mary Shelley's Monster

Shelley’s Frankenstein is celebrated for Halloween

King University celebrates a centuries-old scare this Halloween season, observing the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” with Institute for Faith and Culture Lecture Series guest speaker Christina Bieber Lake, Ph.D.

Lake is the Clyde S. Kilby professor of English at Wheaton College, where she teaches contemporary American literature and literary theory. Monday, Oct. 29, she presents “Frankenfunked: Why We Shouldn’t Do Something Just Because We Can” at 9:15 a.m. at King University’s Memorial Chapel Bristol, Tennessee. That evening, Lake presents “Will the Real Monster Please Stand Up? Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein at 200” at 7 p.m. at the Bristol Public Library, Bristol, Virginia.

“Two centuries after it first appeared, Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ still captivates us with its chilling tale, as well as the moral questions that it raises,” said Martin Dotterweich, director of Faith and Learning at King. “To mark the bicentennial of its publication, we are delighted to welcome Christina Bieber Lake, whose scholarship has focused on the ways that literature tells us about being human. Her perspective on the legacy of Frankenstein will also lead us into questions about science, technology and faith which are integral to the mission of the King Institute for Faith and Culture.”

In addition to her work on Shelley, Lake is a frequent contributor to scholarly work on Flannery O’Connor, and her book “The Incarnational Art of Flannery O’Connor” describes how that iconic author’s unique aesthetic defies the Gnostic dualisms that characterize American intellectual and spiritual life. Bieber’s forthcoming work, “Beyond the Story: American Fiction and the Limits of Materialism,” argues that contemporary American storytelling is an act of love for persons who inherently resist scientific naturalism’s account of human experience.

In 2014, Lake was awarded the Aldersgate Prize by the John Wesley Honors College at Indiana Wesleyan University for integrative scholarship, and the Catholic Press Association’s Book Award in the Faith and Science category for her second book, “Prophets of the Posthuman: American Fiction, Biotechnology and the Ethics of Personhood.”

Lake’s presentation is complemented with the Arts Alliance Mountain Empire’s “The Monster on the Airwaves: Radio Adaptations of Frankenstein” presentation by Christopher Slaughter, associate professor of theater at King, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 30, at the Bristol Public Library.

For the complete schedule and more information on each speaker, visit faithandculture.king.edu, email faithandculture@king.edu or call 423-652-4157.