Rlst201 Lecture notes 10 PDF

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Formally numbered 290as. Bill Arnell and Kevin Bond....

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While ghosts violate categories these creations also violate the animate-vs-inanimate distinction. This shapes our understanding of the world because of a fundamental distinction. These monsters problematize this category because what really separates the line between life and inanimate stuff. Pygmalion • Ovid (43 BCE to 17 CE) ◦ A sculpture carved a statue that he thought was so beautiful that he fell in love with it as if it were alive. Eventually he gives this statue a name and gives her a name, Galatea, and prays to Aphrodite to make her into a human which she does. However this doesn’t turn out to be a disaster, in this case Pygmalion and Galatea live happily ever after and have kids because of divine intervention. • Galatea • Aphrodite Homunculus/Homunculi • In muslim and christian sources from the middle ages there was a genuine interest in the scientifically literate in how to use technique to create life artificially. • In the muslim world (Jabir ibn Hayyan, c. 721-c. 815) lived in what is now Iraq and studied nature extensively in order to look for a way to achieve Takwin (artificial creation of life.) • Alchemist/scientist Paracelsus (1493-1541) in his book De nature rerun he describes a way to make a little human. ◦ That the sperm of a man be putrefied by itself in a sealed [vessel] for forty days with the highest degree of putrefaction in a horse’s womb, or at least so long that it comes to life and moves itself, and stirs, which is easily observed. After this time, it will look somewhat like a man, but transparent, without a body. If, after this, it be fed wisely with the Arcanum of human blood, and be nourished for up to forty weeks, and be kept in the even heat of the horse’s womb, a living child grows therefrom, with all its members like another child, which is born of a woman, but much smaller. Frankenstein The exemplar of the result of human meddling with the creation of life. • Mary Shelley, 1797-1851 ◦ In this novel a man named Dr. Viktor Frankenstein discovers how to impart life to non animate matter. This scientist desires to create a beautiful and perfect specimen of human life. However the stuff that makes us is small and

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detailed and hard to manipulate so in order to build them the doctor is forced to make him 8 feet tall. In addition to that once he finally puts him together the creature has yellow eyes and transparent skin. The Dr. is horrified by it and runs away from it. The monster in the novel is only called a monster a couple of times, in fact it is presented in the novel as intelligent and articulated. However he is horrible in appearance and anyone who encounters him backs away, and this makes him enraged and filled with range becomes aggressive and hunts down his creator and demands that he must make a wife for him. Ultimately the Dr. declines to do so and the monster goes on a murder spree and eventually kills Viktor’s wife, and the doctor dies in pursuit of the monster and the monster mourns his death. Published 1818 ◦ In the novel a lot of the story revels on the fact that the monster feels isolated and alienated in its exclusion from human contact. Frankenstein and his Monster: “Penny Dreadful” ◦ One of the few film or tv representations close to the original novel. Frankenstein, 1931 (boris Karloff) ◦ Most popular representation of the book. Also a sequel called Bride of Frankenstein. In the films the motif of alienation does actual occur but they are mostly a thriller genre. Mel Brooks, Young Frankenstein, 1974 and Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975 are comedy representations of the book.

Terminator 1984 • The main character is a killer robot sent from the future, subsequent iterations have had good robots as well as bad robots. But there is artificially created life that turns against us. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) • Astronauts are being taken to Jupiter, and most of the functions of their ship are taken by the ship’s computer. Who tries to kills the passengers on the ship. (clip on UR courses). Themes • reflections on the nature of reproduction • reflections on the difference between nature and human artifice • reflections on the role and limits of either magic or science • reflections on the nature of life itself • explorations of the theme of our offspring or creation turning against

us Golem • Golem: unformed mass; PS. 139:16 ◦ Sometimes fetus’ or dumb people are also referred to using this term. ◦ A golem is a humanoid entity made of mud or clay and artificially animated by magic. Typically animated using written spells. • Babylonian Talmud (ca. 500 CE), tractate Sanhedrin, especially 65b ◦ Claims that Adam was a golem before god animated him. It also claims that a women is a golem until she becomes a mother. But the actual appearance of golems occur elsewhere. • Rava created a man and sent him to R. Zeva. The latter spoke to him but received no answer. Thereupon he said to him, “You are from the companions [???]; return to your dust. ◦ One rabi creates an artificial human but the only makes a dismissive comment and he collapses. • On the eve of every Shabbat, Judah HaNasi’s pupils, Rab Hanina and Rab Hoshaiah, who developed themselves especially to cosmogony, used to create a delicious calf by means of the Sefer Yetzirah, and ate it on the Sabbath. Sefer Yetzirah • Mystical text that contains Kabbalistic elements. • In the commentaries there contains recipes to make Golems. In the recipes they usually have you take clay or soil and you mold a human out of it and perform a ritual and speak a formula that animates it. • For a lot of jewish mystics you would take the letters of gods name or the Torah and contemplate the letters in different combinations until you enter a mystical trance and enter a union with god. So a lot of the commentaries have wheels to create different combinations of letters. • A spell/recipe ◦ The magician “should be acquainted with the construction of the alphabets, the 231 gates of the alphabets…and he has to be acquainted with all the combinations of the letters, until all the gates will be completed. And he shall take dust and flour… ?? ◦ As a result of the divine experience you will learn a secret formula that will allow you to create life. • The golem and the shem (name) ◦ The mystical name of god is called the shem, and you are supposed to write this name on a piece of paper and to

animate the golem you put it on the golems mouth or forehead to animate it. Golem of Chelm • Rabbi Eliyahu Ba’al Shem ◦ He created a golem by creating a body and putting a shem in its forehead. The golem is there to be a servant, in other cases an experiment, or perhaps even a protector of hostile gentiles. Apparently the creature was rather modest in size but the problem with it was that it kept growing and the Rabbi was worried about it getting too big and he couldn’t decomision him. • 1550 or so to 1583 • Chelm, in eastern Poland The Golem of Prague • Rabbi Loew ◦ Also called the Maharal. Actually a real historic person. He was the chief rabbi in Prague and was a scholar that wrote important legal commentaries. He was the rabbi of the oldnew synagogue built in 1270. He seems to have been influential to the jewish community and there are stories that he had an audience with the holy roman empire. The legends are incredibly varied but according to some permutations Rabbi Loew was confronted with a threat to the jewish community. In some instances the threat is that the holy roman empire wants to expel all the jews but in others the problem is the blood liebel. A slander that jews used the blood of christian children or babies in their rituals. These accusations of ritual murder there was a threat of anti jewish pilgrims. The blood liebel turns jews into monster the golem is there to protect them. In other cases he was just there for physical labour. • Maharal • 1520-1609 • Prague (Bohemia; today the Czech Republic) Joseph (Golem of Prague) • Golem that is a labourer and provides protection without needing food or water. He can’t be allowed to work on the Sabbath (sunday). In some version the Golem thumps gentiles who try to attack jews. • Sabbath Violence - one time Rabbi Loew forgets to move the scroll before the sabbath and he goes berserk. In another version the golem falls in love with the rabbi’s daughter but she rejects him and he freaks out.

• Decommissioning: it raises the question of proper use of violence and Rabbi Loew decides to decommission him. The mindlessness and destructiveness of the golem are too much to handle. • The final resting-place: according to legend the body of the golem remains in the attic of the old-new synagogue until he is needed again (supposedly). 20th Century Versions • The Golem and the Wondrous Deeds of the Maharal of Prague ◦ Claimed that his book was a transcription of a medieval manuscript but that was a lie. It paved the way for other literally treatments • “The Golem: 1920 • The Golem (1969) children's book • The Golem: The Story of a Legend Ambivalence about Violence • Reflection on the legitimacy of violence in self defence but the specificity of the golem as a jewish monster serves this representation of jews fighting back against those who wish to persecute them. In the earliest works the golem is a dangerous and ambivalent figure, because he gets out of control and gets moral problems because if you go to far things will go haywire. Self-defensive violence is thought about but with extreme caution More Golems • Legitimacy to self-defence violence is shown when the golem is both human and jewish. Antisemitism • There is a concern that violence can get out of hand. Self-defensive violence can escape the control of those who use it (when does your violence rise up and come to be who you are). The revival of antisemitism and concern about violence is applied to a story about life creation and the fear that the products that we make can turn against us. This fear is even built right into the creation story about the world around us (Adam disobeys god). • God is supposed to rescue his people (jews) from political oppression and send them a figure who will lead them to safety. The Messiah is sent to rescue the people. The golem represents in a sense is jews deciding they had enough of waiting for god to send the messiah so they created their own....