The exhibit at UAMS complements a larger traveling exhibit at the Central Arkansas Library System’s main branch in downtown Little Rock, “Frankenstein:  Penetrating the Secrets of Nature.” That exhibit, developed by the National Library of Medicine and the American Library Association and sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, will stay in Little Rock through Fri., Sept. 5. The exhibit at UAMS will probably remain in place a little longer.

“Everybody knows about Frankenstein,” said Amanda Saar, M.S.L.S, M.H.S.A, UAMS

special projects librarian. “Even if they don’t get the point about the importance of being responsible for your own creations, they do get the point that not all things created by science are necessarily good.”

On an 1816 stay at the home of Lord Byron, Mary Godwin (who would later marry the poet Percy Shelley) was one of several guests asked to write a “terrifying tale” as a sort of parlor game on a dark and stormy night. Inspired by a dream, Mary wrote the story she later turned into the book Frankenstein, about a scientist who creates life and quickly loses control of his creation. The UAMS display includes notes on Luigi Galvani, who demonstrated the electrical basis of nerve impulses, and Alessandro Volta, the physicist who invented a device to generate static electricity known as the electrophorus. Both were said to be influences on the young Miss Godwin.

An early Wimshurst electrostatic machine, lent by Max Baker, Ph.D., professor of radiology in the UAMS College of Medicine, in the exhibit underscores the fascination many people in the nineteenth century had with electricity and its potential for stimulating human movement.

One of the other displays deals with ethical and philosophical questions arising from the Frankenstein story. It features pictures of Dolly, the first cloned sheep, and articles on genetically modified “Frankenstein foods.” A brochure touting the traveling exhibit says, “During the last decades of the twentieth century, the pace of biomedical research and discoveries intensified… News reports of artificial hearts, the human genome project and genetic engineering, stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, and especially cloning, have each fostered fears that invite comparisons to the Frankenstein myth.”

UAMS Professor Chris Hackler, Ph.D., director of the Division of Medical Humanities in the College of Medicine, will speak on those issues Thurs., Aug. 28 at the Cox Creative Center of the Central Arkansas Library as one of four lectures in conjunction with the traveling exhibit. His subject will be “A Genetically Improved, Bionically Enhanced Human: Frankenstein Redux?”

Another somewhat less sobering display case focuses on the art of Frankenstein, with pictures of Boris Karloff as the monster in the 1931 movie. It also has trivia about the movie, including this little known fact:  during filming Karloff became a father for the first time. While still in full makeup and costume, he rushed to the hospital to see his wife and baby, creating “a panic throughout the hospital.”

The UAMS exhibit is accessible during regular library hours. The hours for the downtown exhibit are 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Mon. through Fri., and 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. on Saturday. Call (501) 918-3032 for more information.

Links on This Page

UAMS Library: http://www.library.uams.edu/
Central Arkansas Library System: http://www.cals.lib.ar.us/
Frankenstein:  Penetrating the Secrets of Nature:  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/frankenstein/frankhome.html
New “Arts of UAMS” exhibit in UAMS Library:  http://www.uams.edu/today/2002/042502/clothier.htm
Old State House Exhibit Is on Arkansas Medical Education:  http://www.uams.edu/today/100401/osh.htm

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