MA Modern Literary Cultures, University of Hertfordshire

Reading the Vampire

2010 sees the launch of ‘Reading the Vampire’ a new MA module on the Modern Literary Cultures MA programme. Students will investigate vampire narratives in literature from early vampire stories such Polidori’s The Vampyre, 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.

Module Leader Dr Sam George s.george@herts.ac.uk

For more information contact MA Co-ordinator Dr Anna Tripp, Humanities, University of Hertfordshire, De Havilland, Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB. Email A.F.Tripp@herts.ac.uk