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thought of as signifiers of disorientation in imaginaries of progress, markers for that which cannot easily be assigned to one side of the binary or the other, perhaps cannot even be properly categorised at all because they too are unknown, like the warnings placed over the uncharted portion of an incomplete map. To illustrate these points more clearly in the discussion that follows, we will draw upon both the Frankenstein story, as one of the original monsters in the socio-technical imaginary of progress through science, and more recent metaphors from popular culture
This book examines the impact that nostalgia has had on the Labour Party’s political development since 1951. In contrast to existing studies that have emphasised the role played by modernity, it argues that nostalgia has defined Labour’s identity and determined the party’s trajectory over time. It outlines how Labour, at both an elite and a grassroots level, has been and remains heavily influenced by a nostalgic commitment to an era of heroic male industrial working-class struggle. This commitment has hindered policy discussion, determined the form that the modernisation process has taken and shaped internal conflict and cohesion. More broadly, Labour’s emotional attachment to the past has made it difficult for the party to adjust to the socioeconomic changes that have taken place in Britain. In short, nostalgia has frequently left the party out of touch with the modern world. In this way, this book offers an assessment of Labour’s failures to adapt to the changing nature and demands of post-war Britain.
the emergence of legal personality and the development of its powers. The UN is neither a ‘super-state’ nor simply a ‘talking shop’, but does it have sufficient autonomy to become a type of ‘Frankenstein’s monster’, whereby the creature becomes more powerful than its creator? 32 Klabbers provocatively raises this spectre at the front of his textbook, 33 but a detailed assessment of the metaphor is given by Guzman: States sometimes create their own form of artificial life, the international organization (IO). Dr Frankenstein created his monster in an attempt
streets of Rome. Monster – from monstrere/monter – means to show, to put on display, as the monstrance ritually displays the sacred host, for example. Monsters de- monster- ate boundaries, the mysteries that lie beyond 144 Kieran Keohane and Carmen Kuhling the limit of what can be known (as in the usage ‘here be monsters’ on explorers’ maps) and not only the obscurities beyond external limits but internal darknesses too, for the Other turns out to be the Other in the interior. Mary Shelley’s monster created by Dr Frankenstein represents the paradox and ambivalence
products have as much impact on public perceptions of science as the mass media. In popular works and in many scholarly texts the interface between science and religion has traditionally been depicted as one of unbridgeable conflict (Evans and Evans, 2008). This divide has a long pedigree in British Gothic literature. It takes early form in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein (Shelley 1998), where a scientist plays God and creates a grotesque creature, rendering himself monstrous in the making of what the outside world deems a monster. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula (2003
10 Global Fifth Amendment You are my creator, but I am your master– obey. … Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful. (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein) The accidental libertarian Having spent his professional life as an academic, public intellectual and media commentator, Richard Epstein built his reputation on his uncompromising libertarian interpretations of the US constitution. His views are almost always controversial, attracting attacks from academics, politicians and even conservatives. His expertise and passion are for the US legal system, out of
delightful DAWSON 9780719096310 PRINT (v2).indd 216 14/10/2016 12:19 Writing as survival 217 nineteenth-century cartoons in Punch, in which the Irish are depicted variously as Caliban, vampires and monsters, is one by Tenniel, who, on 29 October 1881, depicts a human chimpanzee wielding a rock and wearing an ‘Anarchy’ band on his hat, being kept at bay by the upstanding figure of Britannia, wielding her sword of justice.14 Tenniel later portrayed the Irish Home Rule movement as the ‘Irish Frankenstein’ in his cartoon of 20 May 1882, conflating Mary Shelley’s scientist
the Government to deal with the issue of the Scotland Act’s repeal in a way which would stave off SNP criticism have already been highlighted in contemporary reflections. The most famous of these methods was Foot’s proposal to use a parliamentary technicality of voting against the repeal in order to keep the legislation, but not then implementing it, an initiative known variously within the Government as ‘the Frankenstein solution’ or ‘the Frankenstein formula’. This course of action would leave open the prospect of revisiting devolution after a general election
and custom-making, but it is not acting like the leviathan or Frankenstein’s monster of Gothic imagination. As Talmon points out: ‘The Charter does not establish the Council as an omnicompetent world legislator but, rather, as a single issue legislator’. 39 Furthermore, ‘Council legislation is always emergency legislation’, 40 aimed at filling gaps in the law revealed by threats caused by terrorism and other developments. After 9/11 the Security Council legislated to plug the gaps in international laws by preventing support for terrorism caused by the failure of
genomes is illustrated by the case of a US scientist Craig Venter who, in 2010, wanted to construct a completely artificial living species in the lab. He cleverly assembled an artificial genome – a DNA sequence that he thought would do the trick. However, to get a viable organism, Venter was obliged to take the cells of an existing living organism, remove its own genome (its DNA sequence) and replace this genome with the one he had made himself. 5 The media loved it. ‘“Frankenstein” lab creates life in a test tube’, proclaimed a British tabloid, saying: ‘A