Endorsements

"Botting offers a thoughtful study of modern ethical issues concerning technology in the context of Mary Shelley's novels Frankenstein and The Last Man . . . Botting's literary study succeeds as an impressive and resounding challenge to technology-driven doomsday scenarios, replacing these with a vision of a gentler, kinder future in which humankind preserves both its existence and its best, most humane qualities."--Publishers Weekly

"In this passionate, ingenious, and wide-ranging book, Eileen Hunt Botting argues that the tradition of political science fiction descending from Mary Shelley contains rich resources for our own anxious time. Far from signalling the end of humanity, the corruption of nature, or the death of love, these fictions reveal new sources of hope and imaginative energy. They challenge us to care for one another--and the other artificial creatures who may come to inhabit our world--in the knowledge that we are all misshapen by circumstances beyond our control, and yet capable of love."--Martha C. Nussbaum, The University of Chicago

"Eileen Hunt Botting's intellectually adventurous and wide-ranging book offers an engrossing interpretation of Shelley's creation as an early form of AI. Her discussion is rooted in Shelley's well documented interest in the concept of a superintelligence that can out-think, out-pace and outwit its maker; her well-argued analogy to the programmed robots of today is both convincing and compelling. Artificial Life After Frankenstein is unusually rich in its exploration of the literary impact of Shelley's creature, and Botting is to be thanked for her interpretation of one of literature's most rewarding metaphors as a warning to a world increasingly dependent upon the artificial intelligence that we create."--Miranda Seymour, author of In Byron's Wake: The Turbulent Lives of Lord Byron's Wife and Daughter: Annabella Milbanke and Ada Lovelace

"Artificial Life After Frankenstein has a clear and powerful message: we are all artificial creatures, and we all deserve respect, even love. Using Mary Shelley's life and her two novels, Frankenstein and The Last Man, as touchstones throughout, Botting explores what she identifies as the three big myths about artificial intelligence: that it will end the world, destroy nature, and extinguish love."--Lori Marso, author of Politics with Beauvoir: Freedom in the Encounter

"This is an original and compelling book. Eileen Hunt Botting offers a wonderfully rich account of Mary Shelley's philosophical vision and its implications for a range of pressing contemporary debates about the meaning of life. Theoretically acute, historically revealing, and beautifully written, Artificial Life After Frankenstein will be of interest to scholars across a range of disciplines."--Duncan Bell, author of Reordering the World: Essays on Liberalism and Empire