The Universal Vampire Series, 2 Vols.
Vol. 1 – The Universal Vampire: Origins and Evolution of a Legend
Vol. 2 – The Hip and the Atavistic: Images of the Modern Vampire
Editors
Barbara Brodman, Nova Southeastern University
James E. Doan, Nova Southeastern University
Project Overview
For almost 200 years, since the publication of John Polidori’s The Vampyre
(1819), the vampire has been a mainstay of Western culture, appearing
consistently in literature, art, music (notably opera), film, television,
graphic novels and popular culture in general. Even before its entrance
into the realm of arts and letters in the early 19th century, the vampire
was a feared creature of Eastern European folklore and legend, rising from
the grave at night to consume its living loved ones and neighbors, often
converting them at the same time into fellow vampires. A major question
exists within vampire scholarship: to what extent is this creature a product
of European cultural forms, or is the vampire indeed a universal, perhaps
even archetypal figure?
In Volume I, Part 1 of the collection, “Origins of a Legend: Early Mythic
Images of the Vampire,” we hope to shed light on this question. By tracing
the development of the early Norse draugr figure into later European lore,
we may see the underpinnings of Dracula who, of course, first appears as a
vampire in Anglo-Irish Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, published in 1897. The
Romantic vampire, upon which we focus in Part 2 of this volume of the
collection, first coalesced around the figure of Lord Byron and his
associates in the early 1800s; but what were its earlier sources? Could
these have included the legendary Spanish “lady-killer,” Don Juan? And did
they constitute resistance to the dominant culture of the time? As several
of the essays in this collection deal with these literary connections,
others will move outside Europe to explore vampire figures in Native
American and Mesoamerican myth and ritual and the existence of similar or
identical vampiric traditions in Asian and other non-European settings.
Volume I, Part II, “A Tradition Takes Form: The Imprint of the Romantic
Vampire,” will focus on various aspects of the classic Dracula of Bram
Stoker, including the author’s use of colonized language and colonial
discourse and manifestations of the Stoker image in film, literature and
lore around the world. This set of essays will also examine from various
perspectives the relations between other hallmark works of 19th-century
vampire literature, such as J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, and modern
films, including Interview with the Vampire and Let the Right One In.
Volume II of the Universal Vampire Series, The Hip and the Atavistic: Images
of the Modern Vampire, will be an eclectic mélange of essays, including a
discussion of evolution and atavism in the vampire film, The Wisdom of
Crocodiles (1998); critical pieces that examine the modern Asian vampire, on
stage, in graphic novels and in film; images of the Vampire in contemporary
Japan (where, according to its author, vampires should be “beautiful”); an
analysis of the vampire in popular Russian culture; and the obligatory
studies of vampires in The Twilight Saga and the True Blood series.
Each volume in the collection will contain 15 original, thought-provoking
essays, chosen to both augment and challenge the classical vampire corpus
and examine the evolutionary path the legend has taken in modern arts and
letters.
Audience
The book is intended for an informed popular audience interested in the
vampire legend and its manifestations in literature, film, visual arts and
popular culture. Given the popularity of the vampire and the almost insane
pace at which authors, artists and film makers strive to present newer and
more innovative takes on the legend, we anticipate that the book will appeal
to a broad readership throughout the English-speaking world. With the
growing number of academic conferences that focus on the theme of the
vampire, and the proliferation of courses dealing with the vampire legend in
colleges and universities, we are confident that a large academic audience
exists as well.
Source: h-net
