The Making of Medusa: Why does she haunt popular art & culture?

⭐ Discover the enduring myth of Medusa and why she still haunts our culture – tickets await at The Making of Medusa: Why does she haunt popular art & culture?

Highlights
✨ Explore Medusa’s transformation from goddess to monster and cultural icon

🗣️ Engage in a thought-provoking Q&A session with Dr. Natalie Lawrence

🏛️ Discover the intersection of mythology, power, and patriarchy

🎨 Uncover Medusa's presence in ancient and modern art and culture

General Info
📅 Date: 8 December 2026

🕒 Time: 19:00

⏱️ Duration: 2h 30min

📍 Location: Hen & Chicken Bristol, 210 North St, Bristol BS3 1JF, UK

♿ Accessibility: This venue is wheelchair accessible

👤 Age requirement: This is an 18+ event

Description
Uncover Medusa’s lost past, from protective goddess to monster, and explore power, patriarchy, and why she endures. With Q&A.

Medusa is often imagined today as a symbol of female rage or defiance – a monstrous woman turned against the male gaze. But this familiar image is only the final chapter in a far older, stranger story. Long before she was transformed by Athena or slain by Perseus, Medusa appeared as a powerful protective figure: a grinning face on pottery, shields, and thresholds, believed to ward off danger.

This talk uncovers Medusa’s forgotten history, tracing her transformation from guardian to monster to victim. It explores how creation, sexuality and death animate her image, and why her terrifying powers were stripped away. Through comparisons with serpent-women across mythic traditions, we’ll examine why the fusion of women and snakes has endured for millennia, and how ancient chthonic female forces were absorbed into patriarchal systems. Rather than offering a simple story of empowerment or victimhood, this talk asks why Medusa still haunts art and popular culture – and what her survival says about us today.

Doors open at 7pm, talk starts at 7:30pm - come down early to grab a good seat!

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Speaker Bio:

Dr. Natalie Lawrence is a historian of science and author of Enchanted Creatures: Our Monsters and Their Meanings (W&N, 2024; Pegasus 2025).

Get your tickets now for The Making of Medusa: Why does she haunt popular art & culture in Bristol!