Hideous Progenies: Adulterous Adaptations of Frankenstein in the 21st-Century
With the commercial and critical success of Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things (2023), I am assembling a collection of scholarly essays that will explore additional unfaithful 21st-century adaptations (in various media) of Mary Shelley’s 1818 masterpiece, Frankenstein. Taking a page from Thomas Leitch’s idea of the “Ethics of Infidelity,” I propose that investigating the longevity of Shelley’s essential story (the overreacher plot coupled with an animated or re-animated creature) as translated into a variety of “adulterous adaptations” would demonstrate how the plot, structure, character types, themes, etc.