International Symposium
“Celebrating 200 Years of Mary Shelley’s The Last Man”
January 19, 2026, British School at Athens
Organised jointly by the School of English, AUTh, the British School at Athens,
and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Mary Shelley’s third published novel, The Last Man (1826), tells of a great plague which exterminates the human race at the end of the twenty-first century, just as the Greek Revolution reaches its long-postponed conclusion with the conquest of Constantinople. In what many critics have deemed to be her most ambitious novel, Shelley interlaces her personal experience with current historical events and offers a grim but prescient panorama of global and local politics, climate change, ethics, societies, and human institutions. In light of the increased attention The Last Man has gained in the COVID era, this international symposium aims to reflect on the multilayered nature of Shelley’s novel; its parallels with her more famous Frankenstein; its ambivalent philhellenism; its profound resonance in our days; and the rich profusion of ideas it evokes in the reader.
