Glendale Prep Symposium Stitches Ideas Together with Frankenstein

The High School Symposium is an annual event for all high school students to come together as a community to talk about a beautiful piece of literature. Complete with smaller grade level and blended grade level seminar sessions lead by both faculty and seniors, and a guest keynote speaker, this important day at the academy reminds us all the impact of great literature in our lives.

This year, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was the subject of the Socratic discussions at Glendale Prep,  a book each students read during fall break. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus is a Gothic novel published in 1818 by English writer Mary Shelley and is considered one of the best-known works of English literature. Infused with elements of both the Gothic tradition and the Romantic movement, the novel has had a considerable influence on literature. It tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who assembles and animates a self-aware creature through a controversial experiment using parts from various bodies. Shelley began writing the novel when she was just 18.

The Symposium began with a general session in the multipurpose room, where the expectations for the day were explained, before being dismissed into their first seminar. “In the first seminar, they go through as a group with their grade level, but students that they’re not accustomed to having classes with,” explained Assistant Headmaster Conal Tanner. While the first set of seminars is facilitated by faculty, the second set of seminars is led by seniors and included mixed grade levels. “So about five to seven students from every grade level, plunging the depths of the human condition as seen in the literature.”

The day also included a time of refreshments and casual conversations before reconvening for another general session, this time with a special guest, Dr. Evan Lowe from Arizona State University, who delivered a keynote address, giving even more depth to the discussion of the classic novel. “How do we control ourselves, especially as the lights of a hard but noble moral virtue dim behind the blinding lights of technological society and is perhaps extinguished with the banishment of shame,” presented Lowe to the student audience.

“One of the things that we just talked about in the introductory comments at the beginning of the Symposium is why we’re even here doing literature in the first place,” shared Tanner. “So that literature carries with it a lifetime of insight and experience that otherwise would be unattainable to students unless they lived with reflection and open minds and open hearts. Unless they lived many lifetimes over. So, literature pulls in your moral imagination and your moral emotions. You can learn life lessons that otherwise would be unattainable to most of us. The students themselves can emotionally internalize, and through a deep penetrating conversation, rationalize and see that selfishness leads to unhappiness and generosity and selflessness leads to happiness. You can learn that lesson when you’re 12 and 13 instead of learning it at the end of your days after many mistakes.”

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