The Medium Is The Monster: Canadian Adaptations Of Frankenstein And The Discourse Of Technology
by Mark McCutcheon /
2018 / English / PDF
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Technology, a word that emerged historically first to denote the study of any art or technique, has come, in modernity, to describe advanced machines, industrial systems, and media. McCutcheon argues that it is Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein that effectively reinvented the meaning of the word for modern English. It was then Marshall McLuhan's media theory and its adaptations in Canadian popular culture that popularized, even globalized, a Frankensteinian sense of technology. The Medium Is the Monster shows how we cannot talk about technology – that human-made monstrosity – today without conjuring Frankenstein, thanks in large part to its adaptations by pop culture icons such as David Cronenberg, William Gibson, Margaret Atwood, and Deadmau5. In the unexpected connections illustrated by The Medium Is the Monster, McCutcheon brings a fresh approach to studying adaptations, popular culture, and technologyby Mark McCutcheon (Author)
Technology, a word that emerged historically first to denote the study of any art or technique, has come, in modernity, to describe advanced machines, industrial systems, and media. McCutcheon argues that it is Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein that effectively reinvented the meaning of the word for modern English. It was then Marshall McLuhan's media theory and its adaptations in Canadian popular culture that popularized, even globalized, a Frankensteinian sense of technology. The Medium Is the Monster shows how we cannot talk about technology that human-made monstrosity today without conjuring Frankenstein, thanks in large part to its adaptations by pop culture icons such as David Cronenberg, William Gibson, Margaret Atwood, and Deadmau5. In the unexpected connections illustrated by The Medium Is the Monster, McCutcheon brings a fresh approach to studying adaptations, popular culture, and technology.
Review
Technology, a word that emerged historically first to denote the study of any art or technique, has come, in modernity, to describe advanced machines, industrial systems, and media. McCutcheon argues that it is Mary Shelleys 1818 novel Frankenstein that effectively reinvented the meaning of the word for modern English. It was then Marshall McLuhans media theory and its adaptations in Canadian popular culture that popularized, even globalized, a Frankensteinian sense of technology. The Medium Is the Monster shows how we cannot talk about technology that human-made monstrosity today without conjuring Frankenstein, thanks in large part to its Canadian adaptations by pop culture icons such as David Cronenberg, William Gibson, Margaret Atwood, and Deadmau5. In the unexpected connections illustrated by The Medium Is the Monster, McCutcheon brings a fresh approach to studying adaptations, popular culture, and technology.
Mark A. McCutcheon teaches literary studies at Athabasca University. He is the author of The Medium Is the Monster: Canadian Adaptations of Frankenstein and the Discourse of Technology (Athabasca UP, 2018). Mark's articles and chapters on Canadian popular culture, postcolonialism, and copyright have appeared in The Explicator, Digital Studies/Le champ numrique, English Studies in Canada, and other scholarly journals and books. Mark's poetry and short fiction have been published in literary magazines like EVENT, Existere, Carousel, and subTerrain. His poem "The leaf is not the line" won Honourable Mention in Riddle Fence's 2017 Compton Poetry Contest, and "Heaven help the roses" earned Runner-up in Into the Void's 2017 Poetry Contest.
