Vampires

When: Thursdays 27 October and 3, 10, 17, 24 November, 18.00 – 20.00

Where: British Library

Knowledge Quarter’s partner, The British Library, presents a five-week course is devoted to vampire narratives of the last 200 year, timed for Halloween.

‘Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness’ says Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla to her fascinated victim. Seductive yet repellent, ancient yet new, the vampire is a creature of contradictions – hero, villain and victim all in one. An accomplished crosser of thresholds, the vampire has travelled from the page to the stage, and to screens both big and small.

In this courses participants will consider the vampire’s victims – those who are ‘innocent’, those who are negligent, and those who are made complicit by their confused and confusing desires. They will also discuss the often strangely unattractive characters who are the vampire’s would-be destroyers, the hinterlands they inhabit and the instruction manuals they take with them.  And, of course, this will be a chance to look at vampires themselves, following their transformations through time and across a variety of genres and media.  Amongst those making an appearance will be vampires male and female; Byronic heroes; femmes fatales; the mixed-race vampires of Victorian fiction; vampires who threaten the very psychic survival of their all-too-willing victims; and (a more recent development) comic vampires.

This course is convened by Dr Emma McEvoy (University of Westminster). Contributors include Dr Stacey Abbott (University of Roehampton), Dr Catherine Spooner (Lancaster University), Professor Alexandra Warwick (University of Westminster), and British Library curator Greg Buzwell.

Find out more here.