Mar 29, 2024  
College Catalog 2017-2018 
    
College Catalog 2017-2018 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

GERM 174 - Vampires - from Monsters to Superheroes


Vampires are cyclical. Just a few years ago you ran into them anytime you walked into a bookstore or turned on the TV-just like in Victorian times when Bram Stoker’s famous work emerged from a vampire craze. Vampires have always been popular fodder and will continue to be so, even if and as the image of the vampire shifts dramatically over time. The popularity of vampires has waxed and waned for over a hundred years, partially because vampirism can be used as a metaphor for almost anything-from the plague to sexuality to addiction. We will juxtapose classic tales of vampires as monsters with the more recent generation of vampires. What happened to change our imagination of vampires from monsters into hip, outsider superheroes? And what can the examination of vampires tell us about the context in which they were created? Occasionally offered. (4 Credits)