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'Filthy Types': Technology, Reproduction, and Monstrosity in the Romantic Period
 ACLA 2006, Princeton University
 Seminar Organizer(s): Alexandra Neel, Princeton University; Dermot Ryan, Columbia University

Confronting his creator, Victor Frankenstein, the monster exclaims: “My form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid from its very resemblance.” Taking our cue from the monster, we invite proposals that explore the relationships between reproduction and monstrosity in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century print and visual culture. The areas we are interested in exploring include: 1) the relationships between technologies of reproduction and concepts of the monstrous copy or ‘filthy type’; 2) the ways in which technologies of reproduction transform and/or deform the human; 3) the ways in which technologies of reproduction produce “filthy types,” i.e., bad writing and/or bad characters; 4) the ways in which “filthy types” –the criminal, the pornographer, the revolutionary–employ technologies of reproduction like the printing press and stereotype printing; 5) seditious literature and criminal biography; 6) conceptions of the reproductive body in scientific and medical di
scourse; 7) tattooing; 8) mimicry. The seminar welcomes contributions from scholars doing work on print culture and literature; popular and visual culture; media theory; the history and sociology of reading; feminism and gender studies. We also welcome papers addressing broader questions regarding monstrosity in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century: How do technical and scientific innovations affect conceptualizations of monstrosity? What do conceptualizations of monstrosity tell us about changing definitions of the human/non-human during the period? What defines a monster as such? Are monsters necessarily singular or can there be a community of monsters? Can monsters reproduce themselves?

Sumbit proposals online before 30 November, 2005, at
 the following link:
http://aslamp01.princeton.edu/%7Eoitdas/acla06/

The ACLA 2006 general website:
http://webscript.princeton.edu/~acla06/site/

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Received on Sun Nov 27 2005 - 18:22:34 EST