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SUMMARY:Artificial creation of human beings - Three cultural prototypes: G
 oethe's Homunculus\, Shelley's Monster and Huxley's creatures in the Brave
  New World. - Siv Frøydis Berg (Center for Technology\, Innovation and Cu
 lture (TIK)\, University of Oslo)
DTSTART:20081110T170000Z
DTEND:20081110T183000Z
UID:TALK13992@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Zeynep Gurtin-Broadbent
DESCRIPTION:What makes human life? And what is a human being? \n\nThrougho
 ut history\, various forms of creations of artificial life have been imagi
 ned in literature as well as in science. Such imaginings have been constru
 cted on the background of the metaphysics of early modernity and the alche
 mist tradition\, eighteenth century science and Romantic literature\, or t
 he mass productions of the early twentieth century or recent reproductive 
 technologies\, such as IVF and cloning. These expressions and imaginations
  build on and reflect contemporary societies\, culture and science\, and a
 re prolonged into the thinkable potential of what already exists. These cr
 eations challenge the natural/cultural dichotomy\, and the artificial crea
 tures both express and investigate the very limits of monstrosity and ques
 tion what is a human being. The literary descriptions of artificial human 
 beings did not get a “purely” scientific explanation until the first d
 ecades of the 19th century\, in the works of Mary Shelleys Frankenstein (1
 818) and in Goethe’s Faust Part II (1832). A hundred years later\, Aldou
 s Huxley presented another important variety of artificially created human
  beings in Brave New World (1932). \n\nIn this presentation\, I will compa
 re the creations described by Shelley\, Goethe and Huxley. They offer thre
 e different tales of artificial creations: their human beings are made of 
 three different kinds of materials\, and the creations are explained in te
 rms of three different scientific horizons. And all the stories problemati
 ze the integrity of the creator\, as well as the creatures’ search for a
 n identity.\n\nIn Faust Part II\, Faust’s former famulus Wagner creates 
 his Homunculus out of “viel hundert Stoffen” with the methods of alche
 my (and with possible links to the new science of chemistry). Shelley’s 
 Monster is made of “raw materials” - dead bodyparts from unknown peopl
 e\, and animated by means of the powers described in the new sciences\, ga
 lvanism and electricity. In Brave New World there is no visible scientist 
 like in the other two stories\, and the standardized  \nhuman beings are m
 assproduced from biological material in factories – fertilized eggs in v
 itro\, some of them bokanowskified (an early version of “cloning”). \n
 \nWagner wanted to make the general ein Mensch\, Frankenstein dreamt of a 
 new species – but in both  these stories\, the creatures leave the labor
 atory to create their own identity.  In Huxley’s world\, however\, the h
 umans are produced as complete types\, both physically and mentally. A bro
 ad range of sciences and forms of technologies are involved to control not
  only the bodies\, but also the minds of the inhabitants: biology and psyc
 hology. Both Homunculus and the Monster are social and visible “outsider
 s”\, whereas the artificially created people in Brave New World are the 
 normal ones. \n\nHomunculus\, the little man in the bottle\, is not well k
 nown\, but he can be read as the doppeltgänger of Faust and Faustian long
 ing\, and thus as pure entelechien. The unearthly ugly Monster can be read
  as the personified Other\, longing for participation\, or as the first sp
 are part Human. Both forms for longing can be recognized in the uneasiness
  of the mentally imprisoned caste members in the totalitarian society of B
 rave New World.  \n\nI will argue that these three forms of artificially c
 reated human beings can be read as cultural prototypes. All the three of t
 hem have a powerful afterlife in popular culture\, in more or less clean a
 nd recognizable forms\, alone or in combination with other conceptions and
  ideas about human beings and reproduction.
LOCATION:CRASSH\, Seminar Room
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