Forget the flat-topped, rheumy-eyed giant with the zombie shuffle and the rigor-mortis grin. That's kid stuff. This is the real thing: Frankenstein, the book , written by an 18-year-old Englishwoman named Mary Shelley. And Cornell University and the entire Ithaca community are in on it.

More than 3,500 new students at Cornell, as well as many faculty, staff and continuing students, are delving into Mary Shelley's Gothic horror story in preparation for what promises to be a compelling academic rite of passage. Monster panels, talks, seminars and sermons, monster book groups, monster plays, movies and maybe even a monster ball have all spun out of Cornell's First Year Book Project, overseen by Provost Biddy Martin and Isaac Kramnick, vice provost for undergraduate education, and sponsored by the Provost's Office.

Call it Frankenstein fever. But Shelley's Frankenstein, written in 1816, is far more than a perennial pop-culture icon, even if the formal prose of Shelley's original is less than spine-tingling by 21st century standards. With its "mad scientist" and its philosophical forays into the nature of creativity, human relationships and life itself, Frankenstein is a haunting point of departure for wide-ranging and very modern discourse. From talks at Cornell titled "Frankenstein and Contemporary Bio-Ethical Issues" and "Love Your Monster" to "Monster Mondays" for kids at the public library, there will be an intellectually bracing chill in the Ithaca air this autumn.

Cornell has given 750 copies to the Tompkins County Public Library in Ithaca that are available for borrowing from all area libraries and reading centers. Another 600 copies of the university's specially annotated Norton Critical Edition of the book have been distributed to all area high school students. The traveling exhibition "Frankenstein -- Penetrating the Secrets of Nature," developed by the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health for the American Library Association, will visit the public library Oct. 2 through Nov. 17, where Cornell faculty will offer free community lectures. Area ministers are preparing sermons on issues raised by the book, a communitywide reading is under way and even Cornell trustees and reunion classes are joining in on the project.

Together with their entering classmates, professors and continuing students, new Cornell students will discuss, criticize and evaluate the book at two required campus events during the university's orientation week: a large group symposium Sunday, Aug. 25, and small group discussions Monday, Aug. 26. The Sunday symposium also will be broadcast live locally on Time-Warner Cable Channel 16. A faculty member will lead each small group discussion with the assistance of an upper-class student. When classes begin, many new students also will have opportunities to write about some aspect of the book in their first-year writing seminars.

In September, the Cornell Interactive Theatre Ensemble will present a related series exploring the concepts of inclusion, exclusion and the "other," aimed at deepening the learning experiences linking the intellectual ideas of Shelley's book with day-to-day student and academic life. The project also will feature screenings of some of the many Frankenstein and Frankenstein -theme related movies, from the classics to the campy, during the fall, as well as a multidisciplinary lecture series by Cornell faculty, titled Monster Talks.

Here's a roundup of Frankenstein events at Cornell and a selection of events in the Ithaca community:

Cornell events

Large Group Symposium

Sunday, Aug. 25, 3:30-5:30 p.m. in Barton Hall on campus. (Broadcast live on Time-Warner Cable Channel 16.)

• Moderator: Provost Biddy Martin, professor of German studies and women's studies.

Panelists and their topics:

• Stephen Hilgartner, associate professor of science and technology studies, "The Crowd on the Slope: Frankenstein and Contemporary Bio-ethical Issues";
• Molly Hite, professor of English, "Love Your Monster";
• Vice Provost Isaac Kramnick, the Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government, "The Enlightenment: Progress and Science";
• Larry Palmer, professor of law, "Justice: The Monster and Victor Frankenstein";
• Robert Richardson, vice provost for research and the Floyd R. Newman Professor of Physics, "A Frankenstein Experiment." Monster Talks

Wednesday evenings, 8:30-9:30 p.m., in the Robert Purcell Community Center auditorium, on campus, on the following dates:

• Sept. 18: James Adams, associate professor of English, "Bringing Up Monsters: Frankenstein and Education";
• Oct. 9: Jeffrey Doyle, the Hays and James Clark Director of the Office of Undergraduate Biology and professor of plant biology, "Mutants, Hopeful Monsters, Chimeras and Frankenfoods";
• Oct. 30: Glenn Altschuler, dean of the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions and the Litwin Professor of American Studies, "Monsters in American Popular Culture";
• Nov. 20: Brett de Bary, director of the Visual Studies Program and professor of Asian studies, "27 Lives of the Lizard King: Technology, Geopolitics and Godzilla ."

Frankenstein Fridays

Cornell Cinema will host a series of Frankenstein -related movies -- some serious, some just for fun -- on Fridays. Visit the Cornell News Service's Frankenstein web site at http://www.news.cornell.edu/frankenstein/frankensteinNS1intro.html.

Community events held at the Tompkins County Public Library

For a complete guide to Frankenstein activities in the area, visit the Ithaca library's web site at http://tcpl.org/Frankenstein/ or the Cornell News Service's Frankenstein site.

• Frankenstein -- Penetrating the Secrets of Nature: The traveling exhibit of the ALA at the Tompkins County Public Library opens Sept. 30. An opening reception and tour of the exhibition will be held the week of Oct. 7, TBA. The reception includes a talk by David A. Kirby, a visiting scholar in Cornell's Department of Science and Technology Studies. Susan E. Lederer, medical historian at Yale University School of Medicine, curator of the national exhibit, will lead the tour.
• Monster Mondays: Theme programs for kids 7 and older each Monday at 4 p.m. Oct. 7 through Nov. 24.
• Monster Comics: The Comic Book Club of Ithaca discusses Frankenstein and the Funnies Tuesday, Oct. 15, 7 p.m.
• Virtual Science: On Wednesday, Oct. 23, at 7 p.m., teenagers from area schools converge at the Tompkins County Library and log onto the Fingerlakes Library System's traveling computer lab. The online world, SciCenter, is hosted by the Cornell Theory Center (CTC) and features an exhibit on Jumping Genes, a naturally occurring form of genetic mutation more formally known as transposable elements. Technically, the students will walk, run and fly around the virtual world, exploring content and interacting with museum exhibits developed by Cornell undergraduates and high school students under the direction of Margaret Corbit, outreach and public relations manager at CTC.
• Community Reading: On Oct. 24 at 7 p.m., the Community Library Reading Group will discuss Shelley's Frankenstein .
• Community Forum: A community forum on artificial intelligence, hosted by Gary Stewart, Cornell assistant director of community relations, will be held Thursday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m. and includes the Cornell RoboCup Soccer Team, Big Red. The Cornell team beat the Freie Universität (FU) Fighters of Berlin, 7-3, at the 2002 RoboCup small-size robot soccer league championship in Fukuoka, Japan this summer.