Reanimating the Posthuman: Gender, Technology, and Identity in Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein

Abstract

Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein: A Love Story (2019) reimagines Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein through a postmodern, posthuman lens. By intertwining the historical figure of Mary Shelley with a futuristic narrative featuring AI, cryogenics, and transhumanism, Winterson critiques the ambitions of techno-capitalism while
exploring the fluidity of gender, identity, and embodiment. This paper examines how Frankissstein deconstructs binaries—man/machine, past/future, male/female—and challenges the ethics of technological “progress” in relation to the human body. Employing theoretical insights from posthumanism, queer theory, and feminist techno-science studies, the paper argues that Winterson constructs a literary space
where the monstrous is not what lies beyond the human, but what arises within it— through our longing for immortality, control, and reinvention.