Current PhD Student

Brianna Nicole Frentzko

Thesis Title:

Reproducing Myths of Rebellion: Reanimating Frankenstein and Deconstructing the “Human” in Early 21^st Century Literature

Supervisor:

Dr Melissa Oliver-Powell & Dr Deborah Russell

Description:

Brianna’s doctoral research dissects recent Frankenstein-analogue texts exploring the intersection between birth/creation, bodily autonomy, technology, and rebellion. Examining authors like Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro, and N.K. Jemisin, she argues our continual re-animation of Frankenstein’s Creature allows us to investigate the philosophical and political boundaries of “the human.” Questions of human ontology haunt debates around reproductive justice, artificial intelligence, and commodity culture, especially in the last twenty years wherein the extraordinary has been normalized. It also haunted Mary Shelley as she confronted a century of rapid scientific discovery and technological innovation to write Frankenstein. Importantly, Shelley presents a secular version of Creation, Paradise Lost without God, while also presenting posthuman procreation, a child without a womb. In so doing, she complicates the nature of “transgression” and centres it around the means and ends of (re)production as well as the responsibilities of creators to their creations. The novel sets a template for investigating how and why something becomes someone—and what happens when that someone is refused recognition as “human.” Contemporary authors have taken up Shelley’s challenge with their own creature-creator stories, reaching for Milton’s Garden, but always encountering Shelley’s Monster in the process.

Brianna received a combined MFA/MA in Creative Writing and English from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2019. She has published several short stories and reviews, and she recently presented her research at the 2024 BARS conference. During her undergraduate years at the College of William & Mary, Brianna was a Monroe Scholar, a Dintersmith Honors Fellow, and received both the Borish Prize for English as well as the Writing Prize for Phi Beta Kappa. Brianna holds a MA in Secondary Education from the University of New Mexico (2015) and was a member of Teach for America. She has taught literature and writing at both the secondary and university level for over a decade. At University of York, Brianna sits on the Countervoices Committee for the Centre of Modern Studies, which organizes seminars and conferences across the humanities disciplines.