CSUF’s Anecdote: Co-written Article
Check out my co-written article for CSUF’s Anecdote: 200 years of Frankenstein by Nic Vandever and Jessica Shaw
“Two graduate students in English reflect
on the “Frankenstein Meme” Gallery Exhibit
and Events at the Pollak Library during
“Frankenweek,” which highlighted
Mary Shelley’s legacy of a modern participatory
and interdisciplinary monster culture.”
In the last week of October 2018, a manifestation of the incorrigible influence of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein came to life at CSUF’s own Pollak Library. As part of the international “Frankenreads” event celebrating the 200th anniversary of the publication of Shelley’s infamous novel, CSUF’s own celebration, “Frankenweek,” stitched together students, faculty, and staff from across disciplines.
Among the cross-campus collaborators were English professor David Sandner, illustration professor Cliff Cramp, ourwonderful University Archives and Special Collections librarian Patricia Prestinary, a hoard of Pollak Library’s eager outreach librarians, and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature Club (SFLC). Inspiration for the event grew from Dr. Sandner’s emergent Frankenstein Meme database, which he built in collaboration with students of his Romanticism and Science Fiction classes over the course of two years.
Students from Cramp’s advanced illustration classes were tasked with rendering artistic interpretations of Frankenstein and Shelley’s Creature; the results would hang in the Atrium Gallery throughout the month of October, luring innumerable students into the beautifully and hauntingly designed gallery space. To build anticipation for the gallery opening, special library installations entitled “Frankenstein’s Literary Family Tree” and “Mary Shelley’s Bookshelf” both displayed the real life and literary history behind Shelley and her Creature. Meanwhile, the SFLC had spent the year collecting art, poetry, and fiction from students of various disciplines for their 3rd annual DIY magazine publication – aptly titled “It’s a- Zine!”
Stitched together like the monster itself, this event illuminated the deep connection Shelley’s Creature has forged across the humanities, the campus, and the globe. Among the events and exhibits was CSUF’s participation in the international Frankenreads read-a-thon, a public reading of the entirety of Shelley’s original 1818 novel. The list of “Frankenreaders” drew a surprising multitude of monster fanatics: Deans, professors, students dressed as the Creature and his Bride, Writing Center tutors, members of SFLC, librarians, and even CSUF President, Fram Virjee, brought Shelley’s creature to life on Halloween day.
Students from the SFLC and CSUF’s First Year Experience program worked with a team of librarians to create a photobooth, decorations, and advertisements. Members of the “Fullerton Flashers,” a group that draws its members form CSUF’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, performed an impromptu choreography set to Michael Jackson’s monster anthem “Thriller” in elaborate monster makeup.
During the events, Pollak Library North room 130 was temporarily christened the “Villa Diodati,” romantic poet George Gordon Lord Byron’s summer mansion overlooking Lake Geneva where Shelley first dreamed up her creature on a fateful Halloween night. The overall effect of the room was a rather sincere tributary campmacabre: on a table placed amongst copies of “It’s a Zine!” was a framed portrait of Mary Shelley rendered by a zine contributor. Joy Sage, Pollak research librarian and Frankenreads organizer, aptly named the area an “altar to Mary Shelley.” Dollarstore fake green tealight candles filled mason jars and a fireplace projected into the darkness of the vast room, punctuated by periodic shocks of lightning and thunder.
The week continued in the Villa Diodati room with the SFLC’s “It’s a-Zine!” release party, a writer’s workshop featuring novelists and CSUF English alumni James Blaylock (BA ’72) and Tim Powers (BA ’76), and a screening of James Whale’s 1931 movie starring Boris Karloff. The week symbolically culminated with the Frankenreads event on Halloween, as all who worked hard to piece together Frankenweek gathered to read in unison with other campuses and Franken-fans worldwide. The Frankenstein Meme exhibit evidenced a growing cultural identification with the Creature, revealing how many increasingly trace the sympathetic monster’s roots and footsteps, misshapen and misplaced, as their own. This story continues to resonate with the marginalized; Sandner claimed Frankenstein is “the monster we need” through time, for “reflecting the quiet or unquiet injustices” for the socially awkward, the losers, or those of us who, like Dr. Sandner, “love lots of niche, weird things.” Frankenstein is “Mary Shelley’s gift to monster studies” he said, with trademark Sandnerian whispered intensity. “History has not been kind to her – she deserves better. So yes, it’s for her.”
It was easy, for those of us who worked the event, to consider ourselves a participant, a facilitator, audience member, and a fan of Shelley all at once. Invested participants came from off campus and across disciplines, stitched together because of our love for Shelley’s writing and the cultural icon the reature has become. Reflecting on the event, Patricia Prestinary told of her discovery of Frankenstein: “Once I read the novel...and dozens of articles about Mary Shelley, her family, her friends, I was hooked. It is one of those rare novels that is as much biography, social commentary, as it is entertainment.” She elaborated, striking upon the deep importance of the event: “It is as imperative for us to recognize and acknowledge that all humans are flawed, selfish, shortsighted, and impulsive as well as creative, compassionate, resourceful, and inventive. How we reconcile those differences is a question Shelley asked that we have yet to answer.”
T H E A N E C D O T E # 9 — 2 0 1 9 — CSUF
