The Medium Is The Monster: Canadian Adaptations Of Frankenstein And The Discourse Of Technology

248 Pages·2018·2.838 MB·English

by  Mark A. McCutcheon

The Medium
Is the Monster

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aCnadn tahdei aDnis Acdoauprstaet oiof nTse cohf nFsoralontgkeyensrtein
Mark A.
McCutcheon
Copyright © 2018 Mark A. McCutcheon
Published by AU Press, Athabasca University
1200, 10011 – 109 Street, Edmonton, AB T5J 3S8
Cover image: Deadmau5 live in San Francisco. Copyright © 2015 by Maurizio Pesce.
Cover design by Marvin Harder
Interior design by Sergiy Kozakov
Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens
ISBN 978-1-77199-236-7 (cl.) 978-1-77199-224-4 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-77199-225-1 (PDF) 978-1-77199-226-8 (epub)
doi: 10.15215/aupress/9781771992244.01
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
McCutcheon, Mark A., 1972-, author
The medium is the monster : Canadian adaptations of Frankenstein and the discourse
of technology / Mark A. McCutcheon.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
1. Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797–1851—Adaptations. 2. Shelley, Mary
Wollstonecraft, 1797–1851—Influence. 3. Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797–1851.
Frankenstein. 4. McLuhan, Marshall, 1911–1980—Adaptations. 5. McLuhan, Marshall,
1911–1980—Influence. 6. Technology in popular culture. 7. Technology in popular
culture—Canada. 8. Technology in literature. 9. Technology and civilization. 10.
Technology and civilization in literature. I. Title.
PR5397.F738M33 2018 823’.7 C2018-900180-1
C2018-900181-X
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Federation for the
Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program,
using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the
Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities and the assistance provided by the
Government of Alberta through the Alberta Media Fund.
This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–
Noncommercial–NoDerivative Works 4.0 International: see www.creativecommons.org.
The text may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that credit is given
to the original author. To obtain permission for uses beyond those outlined in the Creative
Commons license, please contact AU Press, Athabasca University, at [email protected].
For Dr. Leslie Robicsek, to whom I promised long ago to
dedicate my first book. (I’m sure neither of us then envisioned
that my first book would look like this, but writing is full of
surprises and unexpected turns, which may be one reason why
Mary Shelley described it as “hideous progeny.”)

Even the most abstract categories, in spite of their validity
for all epochs—because of their abstract nature—are yet in
the precise terms of this abstraction themselves as much the
product of historical conditions and possess their full validity
only in respect of and within these conditions.
Karl Marx, Grundrisse ([1857] 1983, 390)
The Québec film-maker, Jean-Claude Labrecque, once said of
the threat of cultural obliteration posed by new technologies
of communication: “It’s like snow; it keeps falling and all you
can do is go on shoveling.” Technology as snow, or maybe as
a nuclear winter; that’s the Canadian, and by extension, world
situation now.
Arthur Kroker, Technology and the Canadian
Mind (1984, 129)
The malicious horizon made us the
essential thinkers of technology.
Dionne Brand, No Language Is Neutral (1990, 23)

Contents
Acknowledgements xi
. 1. . .C aTneacdhan?o lo1g1y, Frankenstein, anIndt roduction 3
2.

3.
4. of “Te cFhrannokloegnyst”e in5 9and the ReiSntvuednietRiso enfo 3 5cusing Adaptation
TMecchLnuohThlaonge’ys M “Fe8rd5ainukme nIps htheem Me”6o onf.s t er: NM5eucrL.ou mhMaanonnecsesqrtr uaoenu dFs rVAainddkaeepontdasrttoieominness :i n1 03
EPl7eact.tter roInns iAIct m DLpiaPvnleirfico oecpr aMa tIg“isouaT Intsetii occDinhn e n Cia1ond5al 5omCngaaaydnu iIa5amd?n i p alnie Ssc Bieenllcigee Friecnticoen”: Pa13tt3ern
8.

Conclusion 189 CFarnanadkieMannpo Phnoesmpteurel saM ro iCfn Tueasltr ua Snraedn Pd1isp7 T5eelicnhens:o logy in
References 205 Index 223