Graham Allen

Unfashioned creatures, but half made up: Beginning with Mary Shelley's Spectre

Would she? Did she? The reference, obviously, is to Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s fate, as a writer, has always been to be a one-novel author. Hard fate in itself, when she wrote so much. But her fate has also been to have that unique achievement, of being ‘‘the Author of Frankenstein,’’ ascribed to the presence, the too brief presence, the animating presence of canonical male poets, Byron, and above all Shelley, the man whose name she took. ‘‘Nothing but the magnetizing of her brain by Shelley’s can account for her having risen so far above her usual self as in Frankenstein.’’ So wrote Richard Garnett in his introduction to her short stories in 1891. Frankenstein has always been a novel treated as a special case of magnetism and of animation: the elevation above her usual (natural?) sphere of a woman by a masculine genius, her ‘‘guide, philosopher, and friend.’’ That’s what one contemporary review calls P.B. Shelley (her ‘‘guide, philosopher, and friend’’), before proceeding to suggest that P.B. Shelley actually may have written Frankenstein himself. ‘‘[W]e know that Mary Shelley brought our attention to the anagram that makes the spectre in respect become visible again.’’ Is Derrida referring to the Preface to the 1818 edition of the novel? ‘‘The event on which the interest of the story depends is exempt from the disadvantages of a mere tale of spectres and enchantment.’’ If this is the reference Derrida is referring to, then he is perhaps unaware that he is actually quoting P.B. Shelley. Mary Shelley, we can be reasonably sure, wrote the following passage, however:

What Kind of Body is Speaking Here?: The Pupils of the University

The essays in this issue of parallax circle around Jacques Derrida’s 1983 inaugural address at Cornell University, ‘The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes of its Pupils’. That essay is widely available now in its original English version in the twovolume translation of Derrida’s hugely compelling and challenging collection on the university, teaching and philosophy, Du droit à la philosophie. Some of the essays here engage with Derrida’s text in a direct fashion, others employ it as a basis for an exploration of specific issues and figures raised within it. Some of the essays here positively follow Derrida’s deconstructive line of thinking, others critique aspects of the philosophy and philosophical readings presented in that and other essays by Derrida. All of the essays, in their differing ways, follow up and interrogate Derrida’s account of the ‘double’ (non-identical, contradictory, plural, ungrounded) nature of ‘thought’ within the university, teaching and reading. Readers, however, will notice various other connections between a good many of these essays. There is, for example, a certain Irish inflection in some of the contributions, along with a repeated reference to a series of academic gatherings and events: events at the universities of Southern Denmark (Kolding), Leeds, Cork, Kent and Oxford are, for example, cited. The following collection of essays is a long way from constituting the proceedings of a conference. However, certain academic conferences and symposia, especially the symposium held in University College, Cork, in April-May 2004, have clearly made an impact and in some cases facilitated the writing of these essays. This issue of parallax is not the manifesto or group presentation of an established body; yet a certain kind of unofficial, unnamed, an-archic body lurks behind and within its pages.

Book review: Travels in China

associated with 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe over other possible iconic objects and events, by arguing that specific material and aesthetic qualities of the Wall and its pictorial representations made it a successful icon (pp. 40–65). Contributors address mainly successful icons such as the Berlin Wall, the Australian wine brand ‘Grange’ (pp. 155–170), and music festivals (pp. 171–186), while failed iconic objects are analysed only to demonstrate the success of others. The various cases dealt with throughout the book illustrate the contingency of iconic objects. Iconic objects are not iconic per se, since they are made iconic under specific cultural conditions. To describe these contingent conditions, authors provide detailed analyses of the ‘popular imagination’ as this is condensed in the mass media. There is a clear relation between iconic objects of the modern age and the rise of mass media. Almost all chapters consider this relation to some respect, yet it is rarely put at the centre of cultural sociological reflection here. While providing rich analyses of narratives and symbols in media, the cultural sociology of icons pursued here does not fully recognize the historical role of mass media in the symbolic and cultural production of icons. Investigating this would answer the question as to whether iconic objects can exist and operate beyond the mass media. Another relevant question, not adequately dealt with here, concerns this issue: what happens to icons in the age of new media (internet, social networks, blogs, etc.) when the structure of cultural production of news seems to be changing significantly? Despite the significant treatment of conceptual debates to be found throughout the book, there remain other issues to be dealt with in the future. Understanding how an object comes to qualify as an icon seems to be one of the most challenging tasks of the new cultural sociology of iconic power. If the iconic is defined in terms of the symbolic power it evokes, as Giesen and others here hold, then how one can explain the power of these objects without involving tautological explanations? In other words, are iconic objects powerful because they are iconic? Or is it the case that any objects which perform symbolic power must be iconic? This book takes initial steps towards answering these and related questions, and provides grounds for future explorations in cultural sociology of iconicity. It therefore deserves the attention of a range of audiences, not only in sociology but in the humanities as well.

Godwin, Fénelon, and the disappearing teacher

The connection between Godwin and Fénelon has traditionally been restricted to the famous and controversial moment in the first edition of Political Justice (1793) in which Godwin presents an example of the interdependence of rationality and ethical action. This paper argues, however, that Fénelon, and particularly his political and educational treatise Telemachus (1699), plays a significant role in a number of Godwins subsequent fictional works. Employing Telemachus to explore the theories of education presented by Godwin in the various editions of Political Justice and The Enquirer (1797), this paper explores the manner in which Godwins version of the Enlightenment transcendence of pedagogical power comes up against its limits. Reading this issue in relation to Godwins argument, in ‘Of Choice in Reading’, that literature remains outside of socio-ethical corruption, three of Godwins major novels are shown to demonstrate that Telemachus provides the chance for meta-textual moments in which the appeal to reason (the readers rational capacity or ‘private judgement’) is at once reflected upon and produced. Reading educational theories and problems into Godwins major fiction in this fashion helps to clarify aspects of the Godwinian (or ‘Jacobin’) novel.