University Offers Course in Vampiric Literature

Do you ever wish that your teachers would let you read Twilight instead of Hamlet, or The Vampire Lestat instead of The Crucible, or maybe even Dracula instead of The Scarlet Letter? Well, coming this fall the University of Hertfordshire will let you do just that. That’s right, this UK school is offering courses in vampiric literature.

“Reading the Vampire: Science, Sexuality, and Alterity in Modern Culture

This module investigates vampire narratives in literature from early vampire stories such J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s lesbian vampire tale Carmilla and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the most famous vampire narrative of all, to the twentieth-century vampire chronicles of Anne Rice and the romantic blockbusters of Stephanie Meyer. Since their animation out of folk materials in the nineteenth century, vampires have been continually reborn in modern culture. They have enacted a host of anxieties and desires, shifting shape as the culture they are brought to life in itself changes form. Reading the Vampire embeds vampires in their cultural contexts, exploring their relationship to modernity; the influence of key thinkers such as Darwin, Marx, and Freud will be addressed, together with issues of gender, national identity, technology, consumption, and social change. The module will provide a forum for the development of innovative research and examine these creatures in all their various manifestations and cultural meanings.”

As you can see by the course description, this isn’t a fluff class, it’s no easy A. Students will be required to put actual thought into their favorite vampire stories, they will have to look at them with a new perspective. I can’t even express how badly I wish I could take this course. Maybe I am just a big vamp-geek, but the idea of taking an intellectual look at vampire fiction throughout time makes me so giddy that I want to bounce around like a six-year-old on caffeine pills.

More information on the class HERE.

- Moonlight

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