Thursday, August 13, 2009

Vampirism 101

With the sudden boom in vampire novels, movies and TV shows many college classes are jumping on the bandwagon and offer critical analysis of vampire mythology. I attend Aurora University in the summer and I came across a class that studies vampirism in literature and film, which, to my surprise, starts when I am still in school in Chicago. I think it’s amazing that horror is starting to be studied as a legit genre that could be analyzed and broken down. The class became so popular that they made it to the University Business website.

“By studying vampire narratives throughout history, from Bram Stoker’s Dracula to present-day stories, students practiced critical thinking skills while learning about the genre conventions that have persisted throughout the years and the different functions vampires serve in popular culture. The literary vampire’s ability to personify a wide variety of themes probably contributes to his persistence.”

-       Professor Donovan Gwinner

Now, I did some research and unfortunately Twilight is one of the required readings for this class but for you hardcore horror fans they do have you read the True Blood book as well. I just think it’s great that there is a class based on vampires since Dracula has always been an interesting novel in the sense of being both a gothic horror but also a romance tale as well. In fact, vampirism is all based on sexual romantic pleasures.

“The vampire can do it all. Everything is up for grabs—your body, soul, and sanity.”

Click here for the full article. 

2 comments:

TheHorrorPress said...

I think it's cool that the school is offering it, but twilight? lol they should have stuck to the classics and yeah the Charlaine Harris Sookie stack house series maybe... We are working on a vampire article as well, just have been lazy to do more research.

Mr. Johnny Sandman said...

Yeah, I don't know why they are studying it but oh well... at least it's vampires.

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