The Kornhauser Health Science Center Library at the University of Louisville is pleased to host this exhibit from the National Library of Medicine.  This exhibit runs February 15 - March 21, 2012 and is open to the public and admission is free.

For nearly two hundred years, the story of Frankenstein—the book, the monster, the scientist— has gripped our imaginations and haunted our nightmares. Though Mary Shelley (1797–1851) was only 20 years old when Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was first published in 1818, she posed profound questions in her novel about individual and societal responsibility for other human beings. To make her point, she used the scientific advances of her era and the controversy surrounding them as a metaphor for issues of unchecked power and self-serving ambition, and their effect on the human community.

This exhibition explores the woman and the world that gave birth to Frankenstein . It examines how playwrights and filmmakers transformed the Frankenstein story into one of the Western world’s most enduring myths. Finally, it considers how Mary Shelley’s unfortunate monster frequently provides a framework for discussions of contemporary biomedical advances such as cloning, which challenge our traditional understanding of what it means to be human.

National Library of Medicine exhibit site

Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature was developed by the National Library of Medicine in collaboration with the American Library Association. The exhibition is based upon a major exhibition produced by the National Library of Medicine in 1997– 1998.
This exhibition has been made possible by major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, dedicated to expanding American understanding of human experience and cultural heritage, and the National Library of Medicine, dedicated to makin g the most accurate and up-todate health information freely available to all.

Exhibit hours:

Kornhauser Health Sciences Library

500 South Preston Street

Mon-Thu 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM

Friday 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Saturday 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Sunday 1:00 PM – 9:00 PM

School groups are welcome and encouraged!