Blood Will Tell: Vampires As Political Metaphors Before World War I by Sara Libby RobinsonBlood Will Tell explores the ways in which writers, thinkers, and politicians used blood and vampire-related imagery to express social and cultural anxieties in the decades leading up to the First World War. Covering a wide variety of topics, including science, citizenship, gender, and anti-Semitism, Robinson demonstrates the ways in which rhetoric tied to blood and vampires permeated political discourse and transcended the disparate cultures of Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, forming a cohesive political and cultural metaphor. An excellent resource, both for students of nineteenth century cultural history and for those interested in the historical roots of Western fascination with vampires.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781618110190
Publication Date: 2011-03-01
Braaaiiinnnsss!: From Academics to Zombies by Robert Smith (Editor)Think you know a thing or two about zombies? Think again. If you're going to keep your wits - and your brains - about you during a zombie attack, you need expert advice. Braaaiiinnnsss : From Academics to Zombies gathers together an irreverent group of scholars and writers to take a serious look at how zombies threaten almost every aspect of our lives. Spawned from the viral publication "When Zombies Attack : Mathematical Modelling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection," this multidisciplinary book draws on a variety of fields including biology, history, law, gender studies, archaeology, library science and landscape architecture. Part homage to zombie films and fiction, part cultural study, this collection humorously explores our deep-seated fear of the undead. Engaging and accessible, Braaaiiinnnnssss will amuse academics and zombie fans alike.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780776607702
Publication Date: 2011-10-08
Bram Stoker's Dracula: Sucking Through the Century, 1897-1997 by Carol Margaret DavisonWinner of the 1997 International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts Best Non-fiction Book In 1897, Archibald Constable & Company published a novel by the unheralded Bram Stoker. That novel, Dracula, has gone on to become perhaps the most influential novel of all time. To commemorate the centennial of that great novel, Carol Margaret Davison has brought together this collection of essays by some of the world's leading scholars. The essays analyze Stoker's original novel and celebrate its legacy in popular culture. The continuing presence of Dracula and vampire fiction and films provides proof that, as Davison writes, Dracula is "alive and sucking." "Dracula is a Gothic mandala, a vast design in which multiple reflections of the elements of the genre are configured in elegant sets of symmetries. It is also a sort of lens, bringing focus and compression to diverse Gothic motifs, including not only vampirism but madness, the night, spoiled innocence, disorder in nature, sacrilege, cannibalism, necrophilia, psychic projection, the succubus, the incubus, the ruin, and the tomb. Gathering up and unifying all that came before it, and casting its great shadow over all that came and continues to come after, its influence on twentieth-century Gothic fiction and film is unique and irresistible." from the Preface by Patrick McGrath
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 1554881056
Publication Date: 1997-11-01
Celluloid Vampires: Life after Death in the Modern World by Stacey AbbottIn 1896, French magician and filmmaker George Méliès brought forth the first celluloid vampire in his film Le manoir du diable. The vampire continues to be one of film's most popular gothic monsters and in fact, today more people become acquainted with the vampire through film than through literature, such as Bram Stoker's classic Dracula. How has this long legacy of celluloid vampires affected our understanding of vampire mythology? And how has the vampire morphed from its folkloric and literary origins? In this entertaining and absorbing work, Stacey Abbott challenges the conventional interpretation of vampire mythology and argues that the medium of film has completely reinvented the vampire archetype. Rather than representing the primitive and folkloric, the vampire has come to embody the very experience of modernity. No longer in a cape and coffin, today's vampire resides in major cities, listens to punk music, embraces technology, and adapts to any situation. Sometimes she's even female. With case studies of vampire classics such as Nosferatu, Martin, Blade, and Habit, the author traces the evolution of the American vampire film, arguing that vampires are more than just blood-drinking monsters; they reflect the cultural and social climate of the societies that produce them, especially during times of intense change and modernization. Abbott also explores how independent filmmaking techniques, special effects makeup, and the stunning and ultramodern computer-generated effects of recent films have affected the representation of the vampire in film.
Dark Angels Revealed: From Dark Rogues to Dark Romantics, the Most Mysterious and Mesmerizing Vampires and Fallen Angels from Count Dracula to Edward Cullen by Angela GraceThe Ultimate Fan Guide to the Dark Angel Phenomenon! Dark Angels have a way of capturing the popular imagination. From Lestat of The Vampire Chronicles to Edward Cullen of the Twilight series to Count Dracula of Bram Stoker's classic novel, fans are enraptured by heaven's mysterious and misunderstood outcasts. Now comes the ultimate fan guide for lovers of the Dark Angel genre. Dark Angels Revealed highlights the most popular Dark Angels from novels, movies, and television including: -- Acheron of the best-selling Dark Hunter series -- Bill Compton of the hit television series True Blood -- Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- Jean Claude from the best-selling Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novels -- The Cullen family from Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series Each entry is a revealing look into a Dark Angel's strengths, weaknesses, and special powers. Even the most diehard fan will glean new insight into each character's psyche, gifts, and personal demons. Brimming with photographs, key lines and scenes, and little known facts and trivia, Dark Angels: A Complete Illustrated Guide is the definitive insider's guide to these supernatural creatures.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781610580533
Publication Date: 2011-05-01
Dracula by Bram StokerShrugging off warnings of vampires from villagers he meets on his journey, Jonathan Harker, a young lawyer from England, travels to a castle in Transylvania to handle a real estate transaction with the mysterious, reclusive Count Dracula. Harker discovers he has become Dracula's prisoner and barely escapes with his life, only to learn that Dracula has hijacked a Russian ship to follow him back to England. As Dracula--a representation of the superstitions of the old world--stalks and terrifies people in England, author Bram Stoker reveals the dangers of modernization. This unabridged version of the English Gothic horror novel is taken from the original text, which was published in 1897.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781467787031
Publication Date: 2015-01-01
Dracula and Philosophy: Dying to Know by Nicolas Michaud (Editor)Twenty-four nocturnal philosophers stake out and vivisect Dracula from many angles, unearthing evidence from numerous movies and shows--macabre, terrifying, tragic, and comic. Altmann decides whether Dracula can really be blamed for his crimes, since it’s his nature as a vampire to behave a certain way. Arp argues that Dracula’s addiction to live human blood dooms him to perpetual misery. Karavitis sees Dracula as a Randian individual pitted against the Marxist collective. Ketcham contrives a meeting between Dracula and the Jewish theologian Maimonides. Littmann maintains that if we disapprove of Dracula’s behavior, we ought to be vegetarians. Mahon uses the example of Dracula to resolve nagging problems about the desirability of immortality. McCrossin and Wolfe, disinter some of the re-interpretations of this now-mythical character, and asks whether we can identify an essential Dracula. Pramik shows how the Dracula tale embodies Kierkegaard’s three stages of life. Barkman and Versteeg ponder what it would really feel like to be Dracula. The Greens publish some previous unknown letters between Dracula and Camus's Meursault. Vuckovich looks at the sexual morality of characters in the Dracula saga. De Waal explains that "Dragula" is scary because every time this being appears, it causes "gender trouble."
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780812698954
Publication Date: 2015-07-14
The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film by Barry Keith Grant (Editor)"The Dread of Difference is a classic. Few film studies texts have been so widely read and so influential. It's rarely on the shelf at my university library, so continuously does it circulate. Now this new edition expands the already comprehensive coverage of gender in the horror film with new essays on recent developments such as the Hostel series and torture porn. Informative and enlightening, this updated classic is an essential reference for fans and students of horror movies."--Stephen Prince, editor of The Horror Film and author of Digital Visual Effects in Cinema: The Seduction of Reality "An impressive array of distinguished scholars . . . gazes deeply into the darkness and then forms a Dionysian chorus reaffirming that sexuality and the monstrous are indeed mated in many horror films."--Choice "An extremely useful introduction to recent thinking about gender issues within this genre."--Film Theory
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780292772458
Publication Date: 2015-04-01
Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampires by Michael E. BellThese stories of vampire legends and gruesome nineteenth-century practices is "a major contribution to the study of New England folk beliefs" (The Boston Globe). For nineteenth-century New Englanders, "vampires" lurked behind tuberculosis. To try to rid their houses and communities from the scourge of the wasting disease, families sometimes relied on folk practices, including exhuming and consuming the bodies of the deceased. Folklorist Michael E. Bell spent twenty years pursuing stories of the vampire in New England. While writers like H.P. Lovecraft, Henry David Thoreau, and Amy Lowell drew on portions of these stories in their writings, Bell brings the actual practices to light for the first time. He shows that the belief in vampires was widespread, and, for some families, lasted well into the twentieth century. With humor, insight, and sympathy, he uncovers story upon story of dying men, women, and children who believed they were food for the dead. "A marvelous book." --Providence Journal Includes an updated preface covering newly discovered cases.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780819571717
Publication Date: 2001
From Demons to Dracula: The Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth by Matthew BeresfordIn blood-soaked lore handed down the centuries, the vampire is a monster of endless fascination: from Bram Stoker's Dracula to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this seductive lover of blood haunts popular culture and inhabits our darkest imaginings. The cultural history of the vampire is a rich and varied tale that is now ably documented in From Demons to Dracula, a compelling study of the vampire myth that reveals why this creature of the undead fascinates us so. Beresford's chronicle roams from the mountains of Eastern Europe to the foggy streets of Victorian England to Hollywood, as he investigates the portrayal of the vampire in history, literature, and art. Opening with the original Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, and his status as a national hero in Romania, he endeavors to winnow out truths from the complex legend and folklore. From Demons to Dracula tracks the evolution of the vampire as an icon and supernatural creature, drawing on classical Greek and Roman myths, witch trials and medieval plagues, Gothic literature, and even contemporary works such as Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire and Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian. Beresford also looks at the widespread impact of screen vampires from television shows, classic movies starring Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, and more recent films such as Underworld and Blade. Whether as a demon of the underworld or a light-fearing hunter of humans, the vampire has endured through the centuries, the book reveals, as powerfully symbolic figure for human concerns with life, death, and the afterlife. A wide-ranging and engrossing chronicle, From Demons to Dracula casts this blood-thirsty nightstalker as a remarkably complex and telling totem of our nightmares, real and imagined.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781861897428
Publication Date: 2008-12-15
Gender in the Vampire Narrative by Amanda HobsonGender in the Vampire Narrative addresses issues of masculinity and femininity, unpacking cultural norms of gender. This collection demonstrates the way that representations of gender in the vampire narrative traverse a large scope of expectations and tropes.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9789463007146
Publication Date: 2016-01-01
Images of the Modern Vampire: The Hip and the Atavistic by Barbara BrodmanIn the predecessor to this book, The Universal Vampire: Origins and Evolution of a Legend, Brodman and Doan presented discussions of the development of the vampire in the West from the early Norse draugr figure to the medieval European revenant and ultimately to Dracula, who first appears as a vampire in Anglo-Irish Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula, published in 1897. The essays in that collection also looked at the non-Western vampire in Native American and Mesoamerican traditions, Asian and Russian vampires in popular culture, and the vampire in contemporary novels, film and television. The essays in this collection continue that multi-cultural and multigeneric discussion by tracing the development of the post-modern vampire, in films ranging from Shadow of a Doubt to Blade, The Wisdom of Crocodiles and Interview with the Vampire; the male and female vampires in the Twilight films, Sookie Stackhouse novels and TrueBlood television series; the vampire in African American women's fiction, Anne Rice's novels and in the post-apocalyptic I Am Legend; vampires in Japanese anime; and finally, to bring the volumes full circle, the presentation of a new Irish Dracula play, adapted from the novel and set in 1888.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781611475838
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
An Intellectual History of Cannibalism by Cătălin AvramescuThe cannibal has played a surprisingly important role in the history of thought--perhaps the ultimate symbol of savagery and degradation-- haunting the Western imagination since before the Age of Discovery, when Europeans first encountered genuine cannibals and related horrible stories of shipwrecked travelers eating each other. An Intellectual History of Cannibalism is the first book to systematically examine the role of the cannibal in the arguments of philosophers, from the classical period to modern disputes about such wide-ranging issues as vegetarianism and the right to private property. Catalin Avramescu shows how the cannibal is, before anything else, a theoretical creature, one whose fate sheds light on the decline of theories of natural law, the emergence of modernity, and contemporary notions about good and evil. This provocative history of ideas traces the cannibal's appearance throughout Western thought, first as a creature springing from the menagerie of natural law, later as a diabolical retort to theological dogmas about the resurrection of the body, and finally to present-day social, ethical, and political debates in which the cannibal is viewed through the lens of anthropology or invoked in the service of moral relativism. Ultimately, An Intellectual History of Cannibalism is the story of the birth of modernity and of the philosophies of culture that arose in the wake of the Enlightenment. It is a book that lays bare the darker fears and impulses that course through the Western intellectual tradition.
The Living and the Undead: Slaying Vampires, Exterminating Zombies by Gregory A. WallerWith a legacy stretching back into legend and folklore, the vampire in all its guises haunts the film and fiction of the twentieth century and remains the most enduring of all the monstrous threats that roam the landscapes of horror. In The Living and the Undead, Gregory A. Waller shows why this creature continues to fascinate us and why every generation reshapes the story of the violent confrontation between the living and the undead to fit new times. Examining a broad range of novels, stories, plays, films, and made-for-television movies, Waller focuses upon a series of interrelated texts: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897); several film adaptations of Stoker's novel; F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror (1922); Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (1954); Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot (1975); Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979); and George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1979). All of these works, Waller argues, speak to our understanding and fear of evil and chaos, of desire and egotism, of slavish dependence and masterful control. This paperback edition of The Living and the Undead features a new preface in which Waller positions his analysis in relation to the explosion of vampire and zombie films, fiction, and criticism in the past twenty-five years.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780252090332
Publication Date: 2010-10-01
Open Graves, Open Minds: Representations of Vampires and the Undead from the Enlightenment to the Present Day by Sam GeorgeThis collection of interconnected essays relates the Undead in literature, art and other media to questions concerning gender, race, genre, technology, consumption and social change. A coherent narrative follows Enlightenment studies of the vampire's origins in folklore and folk panics, the sources of vampire fiction, through Romantic incarnations in Byron and Polidori to Le Fanu's Carmilla. Further essays discuss the Undead in the context of Dracula, fin-de-siècle decadence, Nazi Germany and early cinematic treatments. The rise of the sympathetic vampire is charted from Coppola's film, Bram Stoker's Dracula, to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight. More recent manifestations in novels, TV, Goth subculture, young adult fiction and cinema are dealt with in discussions of True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and much more. Featuring distinguished contributors, including a prominent novelist, and aimed at interdisciplinary scholars or postgraduate students, it will also appeal to aficionados of creative writing and Undead enthusiasts. www.opengravesopenminds.com
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781526102157
Publication Date: 2013
Post/Modern Dracula: From Victorian Themes to Postmodern Praxis by John S. BakPost/modern Dracula explores the postmodern in Bram Stoker's Victorian novel and the Victorian in Francis Ford Coppola's postmodern film to demonstrate how the century that separates the two artists binds them more than it divides them. What are the postmodern elements of Stoker's novel? Where are the Victorian traits in Coppola's film? Is there a postmodern gloss on those Victorian traits? And can there be a Victorian directive behind postmodernism in general? The nine essays compiled in this collection address these and other relevant questions per the novel and the film at three distinct periods: (post)modern Victorianism, post/modernism, and finally postmodernism. Part I on (post)modernist issues in Stoker's novel establishes the link between Victorian themes and postmodern praxes that begins with colonialist concerns and ends with poststructuralist signification. Part II looks at the post/modernist traits in Stoker's Dracula, those obviously influenced by modernism but also, with the help of the novel's plasticity vis-a-vis the media over the last century, by postmodernism. Part III examines more closely the novel's postmodern characteristics, particularly with respect to Coppola's 1992 film, Bram Stoker's Dracula. Dracula defies time and promises to undermine any critical study of it that precisely tries to situate it within a given epoch, including a postmodernist one. Given its relationship to late-capitalist economy, to post-Marxist politics, and to commodity culture, and given its universal appeal to human fears and anxieties, fetishes and fantasies, lusts and desires, Stoker's novel will forever remain post/modern-always haunting our future, as it has repeatedly done so our past. Though scholars of Dracula and Gothic literature in general will find some of the essays innovative and engaging per today's literary criticism, the book is also intended for both an informed general reader and a novice student of the novel and of the film. As such, a few essays are highly specialized in postmodern theory, whereas others are more centered around the sociohistorical context of the novel and film and use various postmodern theories as inroads into the novel's or the film's study.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781847182005
Publication Date: 2007-06-01
Psychological Reflections on Cinematic Terror: Jungian Archetypes in Horror Films by James F. IaccinoIn this examination of the psychology of terror, Iaccino uses Jungian archetypes to analyze significant works in the horror film genre. In the past, Jungian archetypes have been used to interpret mythologies, to examine great works of literature, and to explain why sexual stereotypes persist in our society. Here, for the first time, Iaccino applies such models as the Cursed Wanderers, the Warrior Amazons, the Random Destroyers, and the Techno-Myths to highlight recurrent themes in a wide range of films, from early classics such as Nosferatu to the contemporary Nightmare on Elm Street and Alien series. With this innovative approach, Iaccino gains a new perspective on the psychology of the often powerful compulsion to be scared.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780275944919
Publication Date: 1994-06-30
Reading the Vampire by Ken GelderInsatiable bloodlust, dangerous sexualities, the horror of the undead, uncharted Trannsylvanian wildernesses, and a morbid fascination with the `other': the legend of the vampire continues to haunt popular imagination. Reading the Vampire examines the vampire in all its various manifestations and cultural meanings. Ken Gelder investigates vampire narratives in literature and in film, from early vampire stories like Sheridan Le Fanu's `lesbian vampire' tale Carmilla and Bram Stoker's Dracula, the most famous vampire narrative of all, to contemporary American vampire blockbusters by Stephen King and others, the vampire chronicles of Anne Rice, `post-Ceausescu' vampire narratives, and films such as FW Murnau's Nosferatu and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Reading the Vampire embeds vampires in their cultural contexts, showing vampire narratives feeding off the anxieties and fascinations of their times: from the nineteenth century perils of tourism, issues of colonialism and national identity, and obsessions with sex and death, to the `queer' identity of the vampire or current vampiric metaphors for dangerous exchanges of bodily fluids and AIDS.
See chapter 16: Prolepsis and the "war on terror" : zombie pathology and the culture of fear in 28 days later / Anna Froula
The Silence of the Lambs by Barry ForshawThe 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs, based on Thomas Harris's bestseller, was a game-changer in the fields of both horror and crime cinema. FBI trainee Clarice Starling was a new kind of heroine, vulnerable, intuitive, and in a deeply unhealthy relationship with her monstrous helper/opponent, the serial killer Hannibal Lecter. Jonathan Demme's film skillfully appropriated the tropes of police procedural, gothic melodrama and contemporary horror and produced something entirely new. The resulting film was both critically acclaimed and massively popular, and went on to have an enormous influence on 1990s genre cinema. Crime and horror authority Barry Forshaw closely examines the factors that contributed to the film's impact, including the revelatory performances of Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins in the lead roles.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781906733650
Publication Date: 2013-10-29
Slayers and Their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead by Bruce A. McClellandThe first book to explore the origins of the vampire slayer; "A fascinating comparison of the original vampire myths to their later literary transformations." --Adam Morton, author of On Evil; "From the Balkan Mountains to Beverly Hills, Bruce has mapped the vampire's migration. There's no better guide for the trek." --Jan L. Perkowski, Professor, Slavic Department, University of Virginia, and author of Vampires of the Slavs and The Darkling: A Treatise on Slavic Vampirism; "The vampire slayer is our protector, our hero, our Buffy. But how much do we really know about him--or her? Very little, it turns out, and Bruce McClelland shows us why: because the vampire slayer is an unsettling figure, almost as disturbing as the evil she is set to destroy. Prepare to be frightened . . . and enlightened." --Corey Robin, author of Fear: The History of a Political Idea; "What is unique about this book is that it is the first of its kind to focus on the vampire hunter, rather than the vampire. As such, it makes a significant contribution to the field. This book will appeal to scholars and researchers of folklore, as well as anyone interested in the literature and popular culture of the vampire." --Elizabeth Miller, author of Dracula and A Dracula Handbook; "Shades of Van Helsing! Vampirologist extraordinaire Bruce McClelland has managed that rarest of feats: developing a radically new and thoroughly enlightening perspective on a topic of eternal fascination. Ranging from the icons of popular culture to previously overlooked details of Balkan and Slavic history and folk practice, he has rethought the borders of life and death, good and evil, saint and sinner, vampires and their slayers.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780472026234
Publication Date: 2010-02-11
So Now You're a Zombie: A Handbook for the Newly Undead by John AustinAll aspects of the zombie lifestyle are surveyed in this satirical take on an orientation manual for the newly undead. From how one became a zombie in the first place and the stages of zombification to survival mechanisms, this handbook offers specific advice on everything a fresh zombie needs to know about "life" expectancy, hunting techniques, hitching a ride, hand-to-mouth combat, and feeding etiquette. Instructions for extracting the living from boarded up farmhouses and broken down vehicles are included along with dozens of helpful diagrams outlining attack strategies such as the Ghoul Reach, the Flanking Zak, the Bite Hold, and the Aerial Fall for securing human prey and their all-important flesh and brains.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781569767993
Publication Date: 2010-10-01
Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa by Luise WhiteDuring the colonial period, Africans told each other terrifying rumors that Africans who worked for white colonists captured unwary residents and took their blood. In colonial Tanganyika, for example, Africans were said to be captured by these agents of colonialism and hung upside down, their throats cut so their blood drained into huge buckets. In Kampala, the police were said to abduct Africans and keep them in pits, where their blood was sucked. Luise White presents and interprets vampire stories from East and Central Africa as a way of understanding the world as the storytellers did. Using gossip and rumor as historical sources in their own right, she assesses the place of such evidence, oral and written, in historical reconstruction. White conducted more than 130 interviews for this book and did research in Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia. In addition to presenting powerful, vivid stories that Africans told to describe colonial power, the book presents an original epistemological inquiry into the nature of historical truth and memory, and into their relationship to the writing of history.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780520922297
Publication Date: 2000-01-01
The Things That Fly in the Night: Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora by Giselle Liza AnatolThe Things That Fly in the Nightnbsp;explores images of vampirism in Caribbean and African diasporic folk traditions and in contemporary fiction. Giselle Liza Anatol focuses on the figure of thenbsp;soucouyant, or Old Hag--an aged woman by day who sheds her skin during night's darkest hours in order to fly about her community and suck the blood of her unwitting victims. In contrast to the glitz, glamour, and seductiveness of conventional depictions of the European vampire, the soucouyant triggers unease about old age and female power. Tracing relevant folklore through the English- and French-speaking Caribbean, the U.S. Deep South, and parts of West Africa, Anatol shows how tales of the nocturnal female bloodsuckers not only entertain and encourage obedience in pre-adolescent listeners, but also work to instill particular values about women's "proper" place and behaviors in society at large.nbsp; Alongside traditional legends, Anatol considers the explosion of soucouyant and other vampire narratives among writers of Caribbean and African heritage who in the past twenty years have rejected the demonic image of the character and used her instead to urge for female mobility, racial and cultural empowerment, and anti colonial resistance. Texts include work by authors as diverse as Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, U.S. National Book Award winner Edwidge Danticat, and science fiction/fantasy writers Octavia Butler and Nalo Hopkinson.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780813565750
Publication Date: 2015-02-16
Thinking Dead: What the Zombie Apocalypse Means by Murali BalajiZombies are everywhere these days. We are consuming zombies as much as they are said to be consuming us in mediated apocalyptic scenarios on popular television shows, video game franchises and movies. The "zombie industry" generates billions a year through media texts and other cultural manifestations (zombie races and zombie-themed parks, to name a few). Zombies, like vampires, werewolves, witches and wizards, have become both big dollars for cultural producers and the subject of audience fascination and fetishization. With popular television shows such as AMC's The Walking Dead (based on the popular graphic novel) and movie franchises such as the ones pioneered by George Romero, global fascination with zombies does not show signs of diminishing. In The Thinking Dead: What the Zombie Apocalypse Means, edited by Murali Balaji, scholars ask why our culture has becomes so fascinated by the zombie apocalypse. Essays address this question from a range of theoretical perspectives that tie our consumption of zombies to larger narratives of race, gender, sexuality, politics, economics and the end of the world. Thinking Dead brings together an array of media and cultural studies scholars whose contributions to understanding our obsession with zombies will far outlast the current trends of zombie popularity.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780739183830
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
The Transatlantic Zombie: Slavery, Rebellion, and Living Death by Sarah J. LauroOur most modern monster and perhaps our most American, the zombie that is so prevalent in popular culture today has its roots in African soul capture mythologies. The Transatlantic Zombie provides a more complete history of the zombie than has ever been told, explaining how the myth's migration to the New World was facilitated by the transatlantic slave trade, and reveals the real-world import of storytelling, reminding us of the power of myths and mythmaking, and the high stakes of appropriation and homage. Beginning with an account of a probable ancestor of the zombie found in the Kongolese and Angolan regions of seventeenth-century Africa and ending with a description of the way, in contemporary culture, new media are used to facilitate zombie-themed events, Sarah Juliet Lauro plots the zombie's cultural significance through Caribbean literature, Haitian folklore, and American literature, film, and the visual arts. The zombie entered US consciousness through the American occupation of Haiti, the site of an eighteenth-century slave rebellion that became a war for independence, thus making the figuration of living death inseparable from its resonances with both slavery and rebellion. Lauro bridges African mythology and US mainstream culture by articulating the ethical complications of the zombie as a cultural conquest that was rebranded for the American cinema. As The Transatlantic Zombie shows, the zombie is not merely a bogeyman representing the ills of modern society, but a battleground over which a cultural war has been fought between the imperial urge to absorb exotic, threatening elements, and the originary, Afro-diasporic culture's preservation through a strategy of mythic combat.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780813568850
Publication Date: 2015-07-15
The Ultimate Walking Dead and Philosophy: Hungry for More by Wayne Yuen (Editor)In The Walking Dead, human beings are pushed to their limits by a zombie apocalypse and have to decide what really matters. Good and evil, freedom and slavery, when one life has to be sacrificed for another, even the nature of religion--all the ultimate questions of human existence are posed afresh as the old society crumbles away and a new form of society emerges, with new beliefs and new rules. The Ultimate Walking Dead and Philosophy brings together twenty philosophers with different perspectives on the imagined world of this addictive TV show. How can we keep our humanity when faced with such extreme life-or-death choices? Did Dr. Jenner do the right thing in committing suicide, when all hope seemed to be lost? Does the Governor, as the new Machiavelli, prove that willingness to repeatedly commit murder is the best technique for getting and keeping political power? Why do most characters place such importance on keeping particular individuals alive, especially children? What can we learn about reality from Rick’s haunting hallucinations?
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 0812699157
Publication Date: 2016-01-12
Undead Apocalypse: Vampires and Zombies in the 21st Century by Stacey AbbottTwenty-first century film and television is overwhelmed with images of the undead. Vampires and zombies have often been seen as oppositional: one alluring, the other repellant; one seductive, the other infectious. With case studies of films like I Am Legend and 28 Days Later, as well as TV programmes like Angel and The Walking Dead, this book challenges these popular assumptions and reveals the increasing interconnection of undead genres. Exploring how the figure of the vampire has been infused with the language of science, disease and apocalypse, while the zombie text has increasingly been influenced by the trope of the 'reluctant' vampire, Stacey Abbott shows how both archetypes are actually two sides of the same undead coin. When considered together they present a dystopian, sometimes apocalyptic, vision of twenty-first century existence.
The Vampire in Literature: A Comparison of Bram Stoker's Dracula and Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire by Janina NußbaumerThe figure of the vampire has been around for centuries, and has lost none of its fascination. Although, the portrayal of the vampire in literature today has not much in common with its historical origins, the vampire belief is based on true events. Bram Stoker's novel 'Dracula' laid the foundation for the success story of the vampire. He created something sinister, a monster in the shape of a gentleman. The evil of the Victorian society was personified in the form of the revenant. Boundaries between good and evil, human and non-human, death and life are blurred and unrecognizable in his book. In contrast, Anne Rice creates a world where humans and vampires live next to each other. Her vampires resemble human beings not only in terms of their bodies, but also in terms of their minds. There is no horror detectable, but amazement and identification with the revenants by the reader. In this context, the differentiation of the constructed images of the vampires in the two novels, 'Dracula' by Bram Stoker and 'Interview with the Vampire' by Anne Rice, is analyzed. Thereby, the study investigates those elements that have been adopted, those ones that have developed over the time, and the consequences that go along with the manner of construction.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9783954891375
Publication Date: 2014
The Vampire in Nineteenth Century English Literature by Carol A. SenfCarol A. Senf traces the vampire's evolution from folklore to twentieth-century popular culture and explains why this creature became such an important metaphor in Victorian England. This bloodsucker who had stalked the folklore of almost every culture became the property of serious artists and thinkers in Victorian England, including Charlotte and Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels. People who did not believe in the existence of vampires nonetheless saw numerous metaphoric possibilities in a creature from the past that exerted pressure on the present and was often threatening because of its sexuality.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780299263836
Publication Date: 1988
Vampire Lectures by Laurence A. RickelsBela Lugosi may as the eighties gothic rock band Bauhaus sang dead, but the vampire lives on. A nightmarish figure dwelling somewhere between genuine terror and high camp, a morbid repository for the psychic projections of diverse cultures, an endlessly recyclable mass-media icon, the vampire is an enduring object of fascination, fear, ridicule, and reverence. In The Vampire Lectures, Laurence A. Rickels sifts through the rich mythology of vampirism, from medieval folklore to Marilyn Manson, to explore the profound and unconscious appeal of the undead."
Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality by Paul BarberIn this engrossing book, Paul Barber surveys centuries of folklore about vampires and offers the first scientific explanation for the origins of the vampire legends. From the tale of a sixteenth-century shoemaker from Breslau whose ghost terrorized everyone in the city, to the testimony of a doctor who presided over the exhumation and dissection of a graveyard full of Serbian vampires, his book is fascinating reading. "This study's comprehensiveness and the author's bone-dry wit make this compelling reading, not just for folklorists, but for anyone interested in a time when the dead wouldn't stay dead."--Booklist "Barber's inquiry into vampires, fact and fiction, is a gem in the literature of debunking... [and] a convincing exercise in mental archaeology."--Roy Porter, Nature "A splendid book about the undead, illuminated by the findings of morbid anatomy.... The main value of this most interesting book is to remind us how far we have come in our ability to explain the world and how this has released us from at least some terrors."--Anthony Daniels, Spectator "This book is fascinating reading for physicians and anthropologists as well as anyone interested in folklore."--R. Ted Steinbock, M.D., Journal of the American Medical Association "A fascinating and pain-staking (sorry!) thesis, which welds together folklore, epidemic panic, communal stupidity, and forensic and funereal science."--Huw Knight, New Scientist
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780300153484
Publication Date: 1988
Vampires: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil by Peter A. DayIn the modern world vampires come in all forms: they can be perpetrators or victims, metaphors or monsters, scapegoats for sinfulness or mirrors of our own evil. What becomes obvious from the scope of the fifteen essays in this collection is that vampires have infiltrated just about every area of popular culture and consciousness. In fact, the way that vampires are depicted in all types of media is often a telling signifier of the fears and expectations of a culture or community and the way that it perceives itself; and others. The volume's essays offer a fascinating insight into both vampires themselves and the cultures that envisage them.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9789401201469
Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Vampires and a Reasonable Dictionary by Scott Abbott; Zarko RadakovicIn 2008 the authors published, in Belgrade, Vampiri & Razumni recnik, which is now published in English as Vampires & A Reasonable Dictionary. Vampires is Radakovic's fictionalized account of a Serb living in Cologne, Germany while his former country disintegrates. He travels in the American West, ostensibly looking for the vampires causing chaos in his own country, and then returns to Europe, having found no vampires. It is a dark text, a story of destruction told in a narrative that refuses all the solaces narrative has traditionally afforded. A Reasonable Dictionary is Abbott's personally troubled account of his and Radakovic's trip up the Drina River between the civil wars, a journey made with Peter Handke, a trip during which some of Abbott's specifically American stories lost their moral structure. Both works, along with Radakovic and Abbott's earlier work Repetitions (published by punctum books in 2013), examine generic distinctions and question storytelling in general, all in the context of travel in Yugoslavia, in the former Yugoslavia, and in western America. Two aspects make the books unique. First, they are written about experiences shared by two authors whose native languages are Serbian and English respectively (German is their only common language). The authors' perspectives contrast with and supplement one another: Radakovic grew up in Tito's Yugoslavia and Abbott comes from the Mormon American West; Radakovic is the translator of most of Peter Handke's works into Serbo-Croatian and Abbott translated Handke's provocative A Journey to the Rivers: Justice for Serbia for Viking Press and his play Voyage by Dugout: The Play of the Film of the War for PAJ (Performing Arts Journal); Radakovic was a journalist for Deutsche Welle in Cologne and Abbott is a professor of German literature at Utah Valley University; Radakovic is the author of several novels and Abbott has published mostly literary-critical work; and so on. Two sets of eyes. Two pens. Two visions of the world.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780692022238
Publication Date: 2014-08-30
Vampires and Zombies: Transcultural Migrations and Transnational Interpretations by Dorothea Fischer-HornungThe undead are very much alive in contemporary entertainment and lore. Indeed, vampires and zombies have garnered attention in print media, cinema, and on television. The vampire, with roots in medieval European folklore, and the zombie, with origins in Afro-Caribbean mythology, have both undergone significant transformations in global culture, proliferating as deviant representatives of the zeitgeist. As this volume demonstrates, distribution of vampires and zombies across time and space has revealed these undead figures to carry multiple meanings. Of all monsters, vampires and zombies seem to be the trendiest--the most regularly incarnate of the undead and the monsters most frequently represented in the media and pop culture. Moreover, both figures have experienced radical reinterpretations. If in the past vampires were evil, blood-sucking exploiters and zombies were brainless victims, they now have metamorphosed into kinder and gentler blood-sucking vampires and crueler, more relentless, flesh-eating zombies. Although the portrayals of both vampires and zombies can be traced back to specific regions and predate mass media, the introduction of mass distribution through film and game technologies has significantly modified their depiction over time and in new environments. Among other topics, contributors discuss zombies in Thai films, vampire novels of Mexico, and undead avatars in horror videogames. This volume--with scholars from different national and cultural backgrounds--explores the transformations that the vampire and zombie figures undergo when they travel globally and through various media and cultures.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781496804747
Publication Date: 2016-02-29
Vikram and the Vampire: Classi Hindu Tales of Adventure, Magic and Romance by Richard Francis BurtonYou may think that the vampire story is a genre that has its roots in nineteenth-century Europe, but in truth, virtually every culture has its own version of undead creatures who feed upon the living. This fascinating collection presents several vampire stories from the South Asian subcontinent that blend supernatural elements with Hindu mysticism and mythology.
See chapter 4: No end to Nosferatu (1922) / Thomas Elsaesser
What Goes Around Comes Around: The Films of Jonathan Demme by Michael BlissThis first book on the director of "The Silence of the Lambs "and "Philadelphia "is comprehensive, analyzing each of Jonathan Demme's thirteen films. Demme received the 1980 New York Film Critics Award as Best Director for "Melvin and Howard. "Subsequent Demme films such as "Something Wild "and the Talking Heads concert film "Stop Making Sense, "which won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Documentary, made Demme a cult favorite in the league of Roger Corman. With 199l's "The Silence of the Lambs, "Demme moved into a different league. The top-grossing film of the year, "Silence "won five Academy Awards, becoming the first film to sweep the Best Director, Actor, Actress, and Picture categories since 1975's" One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Philadelphia "also has been a top-grossing film, with Tom Hanks winning 1994's Best Actor Oscar. Michael Bliss and Christina Banks include a wealth of biographical and critical data; an exclusive interview with Demme; the only on-set report on the filming of "The Silence of the Lambs; "an interview with Craig McKay, Demme's Emmy-winning film editor; a bibliography; and a Demme filmography. Many of the book's movie still illustrations have never been published.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 0585107823
Publication Date: 1996-01-01
The Year's Work at the Zombie Research Center by Atia Sattar"Playful and (un)deadly serious . . . chew[s] through a near-exhaustive array of films, television, literature, culture, music and even cocktails."--Times Literary Supplement They have stalked the horizons of our culture, wreaked havoc on moribund concepts of dead and not dead, threatened our sense of identity, and endangered our personal safety. Now zombies have emerged from the lurking shadows of society's fringes to wander the sacred halls of the academy, feasting on tender minds and hurling rot across our intellectual landscape. It is time to unite in common cause, to shore up defenses, firm up critical and analytical resources, and fortify crumbling lines of inquiry. Responding to this call, Brain Workers from the Zombie Research Center poke and prod the rotting corpus of zombie culture trying to make sense of cult classics and the unstoppable growth of new and even more disturbing work. They exhume "zombie theory" and decaying historical documents from America, Europe, and the Caribbean in order to unearth the zombie world and arm readers with the brain tools necessary for everyday survival. Readers will see that zombie culture today "lives" in shapes as mutable as a zombie horde--and is often just as violent. "An intelligent and highly engaging collection that will appeal to legions of zombie fans, to students in the humanities, and to scholars working in fields that have already been affected by or are now preparing for the zombie apocalypse. It blends entertaining, illuminating, and accessible readings of zombies and zombie culture with unique interventions made from authoritative positions of expertise."--Julian Murphet, author of Faulkner's Media Romance
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780253013927
Publication Date: 2014-09-22
Zombie Cinema by Ian OlneyIt's official: the zombie apocalypse is here. The living dead have been lurking in popular culture since the 1930s, but they have never been as ubiquitous or as widely-embraced as they are today. Zombie Cinema is a lively and accessible introduction to this massively popular genre. Presenting a historical overview of zombie appearances in cinema and on television, Ian Olney also considers why, more than any other horror movie monster, zombies have captured the imagination of twenty-first-century audiences. Surveying the landmarks of zombie film and TV, from White Zombie to The Walking Dead, the book also offers unique insight into why zombies have gone global, spreading well beyond the borders of American and European cinema to turn up in films from countries as far-flung as Cuba, India, Japan, New Zealand, and Nigeria. Both fun and thought-provoking, Zombie Cinema will give readers a new perspective on our ravenous hunger for the living dead.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780813579498
Publication Date: 2017-03-17
The Zombie Gospel: The Walking Dead and What It Means to Be Human by Danielle J. StricklandWhat can zombies teach us about the gospel? The hit show The Walking Dead is set in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by mindless zombies. The characters have one goal: survive at all costs. At first glance there doesn't seem to be much the show can teach us about God or ourselves. Or is there? Author and speaker Danielle Strickland didn't expect to be drawn to a show about zombies, but she was surprised by the spiritual themes the show considers. In The Zombie Gospel she explores the ways that The Walking Dead can help us think about survival, community, consumerism, social justice, and the resurrection life of Jesus. After all, in the gospel God raises up a new humanity--a humanity resuscitated and reanimated by the new life of the Holy Spirit. Fans of the show will resonate with the book's exploration of spiritual themes, and can follow along with the episode discussion guide included within. And even if you haven't yet encountered The Walking Dead, you may be surprised to find another, greater story within the show's story.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780830843893
Publication Date: 2017-10-03
Zombies, Migrants, and Queers: Race and Crisis Capitalism in Pop Culture by Camilla FojasThe alarm and anxiety unleashed by the Great Recession found fascinating expression across popular culture. Harried survivors negotiated societal collapse in The Walking Dead. Middle-class whites crossed the literal and metaphorical Mexican border on Breaking Bad or coped with a lack of freedom among the marginalized on Orange Is the New Black. Camilla Fojas uses representations of people of color, the incarcerated, and trans/queers--vulnerable populations all--to work through the contradictions created by the economic crisis and its freefalling aftermath. Television, film, advertising, and media coverage of the crisis created a distinct kind of story about capitalism and the violence that supports it. Fojas shows how these pop culture moments reshaped social dynamics and people's economic sensibilities and connects the ways pop culture reflected economic devastation. She also examines how these artifacts illuminated parts of society usually kept off-screen or on the margins even as they defaulted to stories of white protagonists.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780252099441
Publication Date: 2017-02-10
Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis by John Vervaeke"Why has the zombie become such a pervasive figure in twenty-first-century popular culture? John Vervaeke, Christopher Mastropietro and Filip Miscevic seek to answer this question by arguing that particular aspects of the zombie, common to a variety of media forms, reflect a crisis in modern Western culture. The authors examine the essential features of the zombie, including mindlessness, ugliness and homelessness, and argue that these reflect the outlook of the contemporary West and its attendant zeitgeists of anxiety, alienation, disconnection and disenfranchisement. They trace the relationship between zombies and the theme of secular apocalypse, demonstrating that the zombie draws its power from being a perversion of the Christian mythos of death and resurrection. Symbolic of a lost Christian worldview, the zombie represents a world that can no longer explain itself, nor provide us with instructions for how to live within it. The concept of 'domicide' or the destruction of home is developed to describe the modern crisis of meaning that the zombie both represents and reflects. This is illustrated using case studies including the relocation of the Anishinaabe of the Grassy Narrows First Nation, and the upheaval of population displacement in the Hellenistic period. Finally, the authors invoke and reformulate symbols of the four horseman of the apocalypse as rhetorical analogues to frame those aspects of contemporary collapse that elucidate the horror of the zombie. Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis is required reading for anyone interested in the phenomenon of zombies in contemporary culture. It will also be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience including students and scholars of culture studies, semiotics, philosophy, religious studies, eschatology, anthropology, Jungian studies, and sociology."--Publisher's website.