Vampires that grew sick of Dracula

Bram Stocker’s Dracula (1897) is considered a cornerstone when the subject is vampires. Although there were important works written before Stocker’s, such as “The Vampyre” (1819) by John Polidori and Carmilla (1872) by Sheridan Le Fanu, it was Dracula that established a vampiric genre and influenced countless works that came afterwards. Vampires in the contemporary, however, present some primordial differences when compared to the 19th century Count. Their relation with humans, who once were seen just as prey, evolves in the 20th and 21st century. It can be argued that these differences are due to the age those blood sucking monsters were created and “live” among society.

A Marginal Interest? Byron and the Fine Arts

Byron has always been regarded as the possessor of a tin ear when it came to art. But once he took up residence on the Continent in 1816 he could hardly avoid paintings, especially when fellow-travellers like John Polidori, John Cam Hobbhouse and Stendhal insisted on showing him the galleries full of Flemish art in Belgium or Italian old masters in Milan, Venice, Florence and Rome.The essay works out what exactly he saw in all these places, and comments on what he had to say. In particular, it draws together an ‘Italian composite’ of feminine portraits, and ponders the question whether it is style or subject that we respond to in painting.

Vampires, Viruses, and Verbalisation

This paper considers Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, published in 1897, as a window into techno-scientific and sociocultural developments of the fin-de-siècle era, ranging from blood transfusion and virology up to communication technology and brain research, but focusing on the birth of psychoanalysis in 1897, the year of publication. Stoker’s literary classic heralds a new style of scientific thinking, foreshadowing important aspects of post-1900 culture. Dracula reflects a number of scientific events which surfaced in the 1890s but evolved into major research areas that are still relevant today. Rather than seeing science and literature as separate realms, moreover, Stoker’s masterpiece encourages us to address the ways in which techno-scientific and psycho-cultural developments mutually challenge and mirror one another, so that we may use his novel to deepen our understanding of emerging research practices and vice versa (Zwart 2008, 2010). Psychoanalysis plays a double role in this. It is the research field whose genealogical constellation is being studied, but at the same time (Lacanian) psychoanalysis guides my reading strategy. Dracula, the infectious, undead Vampire has become an archetypal cinematic icon and has attracted the attention of numerous scholars (Browning & Picart 2009). The vampire complex built on various folkloristic and literary sources and culminated in two famous nineteenth-century literary publications: the story The Vampyre by John Polidori (published in 1819)2 and Stoker’s version. Most of the more than 200 vampire movies released since Nosferatu (1922) are based on the latter (Skal 1990; Browning & Picart 2009; Melton 2010; Silver & Ursini 2010). Yet, rather than on the archetypal cinematic image of the Vampire, I will focus on the various scientific ideas and instruments employed by Dracula’s antagonists to overcome the threat to civilisation he represents. Although the basic storyline is well-known, I will begin with a plot summary.