The Monstrous as the Paradigm of Modernity? Or Frankenstein, Myth of the Birth of the Contemporary

Extract

‘Do you see this egg? It is with this that all the theological schools and all the churches of the Earth will be overturned.’

Diderot, Entretien avec d'Alembert (Conversation with d'Alembert)

About fifteen years ago I took a journey through the famous work of Mary Shelley, and the interpretation of her warning call. Let me say briefly why I am interested in Mary Shelley.

At the beginning of the 80s I was invited by a journal to reflect on what was totally new at that time: the birth of children conceived asexually and outside the body by in vitro fertilization. At that time very little work existed on these issues, though they were soon to generate a great deal of ink. The only publications to have appeared were Jacques Testart's very first book, De l'éprouvette au bébé spectacle (From the test tube to the miracle baby), and René Frydman's L'irrésistible désir de naissance (The irresistible desire for birth).