Lasting Fascination with Vampires Old and New
News release
2nd August 2012
Academic research which compares Twilight’s Edward Cullen and Bram Stoker’s Dracula will be used as part of the syllabus for English students at Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln.
Sibylle Erle, a Senior Lecturer in English, will teach the ‘Terrors of the Night’ module in the autumn. The module will run alongside a series of research seminars on vampires which she will deliver with other vampire experts including Dr Sam George from the University of Hertfordshire.
Sibylle, who last year co-curated a display on Blake and Physiognomy at Tate Britain, explained: “I try and organise events which go beyond the day-to-day and confront the students with research done on a high level.”
“The seminars are an important tool for me and an opportunity to get students thinking outside the classroom and the normal day-to-day teaching.”
Sibylle was inspired to research the history of vampires after studying William Blake’s painting The Ghost of a Flea, which is thought to depict the Victorian archetype of a vampire – a vision of a huge, terrifying creature that drinks human blood.
In her view contemporary vampires, as depicted in the Twilight series of books and films, are too far removed from the Victorian notion of a vampire to be satisfying.
“I teach Dracula, which is exciting as we are in the centenary year of Stoker’s death, and I have been known to tell my students that Dracula and Edward Cullen have little in common,” says Sibylle. “Luckily most of them already know this.
“I’m working on the origins of the modern vampire story which kicked off in the early 19th century and my interest started with William Blake’s The Ghost of a Flea. The Flea embodies the more traditional type of vampire, the animal or monster, which Edward Cullen wants to move away from.
“The Flea is not a pretty boy; he looks like Mary Shelley’s monster and he shares with Frankenstein’s creature a full awareness of his own monstrous self.
“Blake himself said that when the Flea spoke to him it was a rational being and fully aware of its bodged identity.”
Sibylle maintains that in its transition from horrifying Victorian monster to 21st-century romantic anti-hero – as epitomised by the likes of Edward Cullen or Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer – the true essence of Bram Stoker’s vampire story has been lost
“I like a good scare, and I like vampires to be vampires – real monsters, controversial and morally subversive and really scary.
“Many of the modern incarnations of the vampire story promote body image over how we are in the bodies we have. This is problematic because it alienates us from ourselves.”
The seminars will be open to the general public as well as students and will take place on the BG campus in Lincoln on 17th, 24th and 31st October.
Ends
Notes to editors:
- Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln was established in 1862 and celebrates its 150thanniversary in 2012.
- It is an independent higher education institution based in Lincoln and awarding its own degrees at foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate level.
Cerri Delaney
Shooting Star PR
01522 528540
cerri@shootingstar-pr.co.uk
www.shootingstar-pr.co.uk
t: @cerridelaney
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