Kathleen Shaughnessy is a fifth-year PhD candidate in English at the University of Iowa, USA. She specializes in intersections between the gothic, science, and crime in 19th century British literature. She is also interested in popular transnational and imperial fiction of the period, as well as neo-Victorian literature and globalgothic studies. Her current dissertation research studies how 19th century scientific innovations and imperial projects helped to form the Gothic monster in fin-de-siècle popular fiction.