This November, The Second Shelf welcomes Megen de Bruin-Molé and Liz Gloyn to talk about monsters and modernity as they launch their new books. In Gothic Remixed: Monster Mashups and Frankenfictions in 21st-Century Culture, Megen looks at what the current popularity of the ‘monster mash’ can reveal about our assumptions regarding originality, monstrosity, authorship, and historiography; Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture takes Liz on a journey around the contemporary world to explore why the monsters of ancient myth continue to survive in our world. Liz and Megen will read extracts from their books before a short discussion around the continuing power and meaning of monsters.

Megen de Bruin-Molé (@MegenJM) is a media studies scholar and university lecturer working in the UK. She specialises in adaptation, (neo-)Victorian fiction, popular feminism, and contemporary remix culture, and has published a number of open-access articles and reviews in these areas. Follow her latest work on Frankenfiction.com.

Liz Gloyn (@lizgloyn) is Senior Lecturer in Classics at Royal Holloway, University of London. Beyond classical reception, her research focuses on the intersections between Latin literature, ancient philosophy and gender studies; she is the author of The Ethics of the Family in Seneca (2017, Cambridge University Press), as well as many articles in academic and mainstream publications