U. Melissa Anyiwo

This edited volume provides pedagogical tools for those who teach – and would like to teach – with the most iconic of monsters: the vampire. Vampires are showing up with increasing frequency in the college classroom and there are a growing number of courses devoted solely to the Undead. This collection draws from a diverse range of teaching approaches, including the theoretical framing of vampire texts in a broad range of settings, that demonstrate the myriad of ways vampires are used to teach about marginalization, empathy, and inspire social justice. With chapters from global scholars, this essential text illustrates the burgeoning field of vampire studies and the popularity in classrooms at every level around the world, from gothic fiction to television courses.

Teaching with Vampires

Amanda Hobson

Gender 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. The text offers classroom ready original essays that outline contemporary debates about sexual objectification and gender norms using the lens of the vampire in order to examine the ways those roles are undone and reinforced through popular culture through a specific emphasis on cultural fears and anxieties about gender roles. The essays explore the presentations of gendered identities in a wide variety of sources including novels, films, graphic novels and more, focusing on wildly popular examples, such as The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, and Twilight, and also lesser known works, for instance, Byzantium and The Blood of the Vampire. The authors work to unravel the ties that bind gender to the body and the sociocultural institutions that shape our views of gendered norms and invite students of all levels to engage in interdisciplinary conversations about both theoretical and embodied constructions of gender. This text makes a fascinating accompanying text for many courses, such as first-year studies, literature, film, women's and gender studies, sociology, popular culture or media studies, cultural studies, American studies or history. Ultimately this is a text for all fans of popular culture.

Gender in the Vampire Narrative

Karoline Szatek-Tudor

Buffy Conquers the Academy represents the cusp of pioneering research into a television show that has inspired a wealth of academic study since its cancellation in 2003. As a reflection of the current obsession with all things vampiric, this text offers an alternative perspective on the vampire myth from the point of view of scholars in the field and thereby celebrates the continuing existence of Buffy Studies as an endlessly fruitful academic discipline that is truly global and interdisciplinary. The Associations of Popular Culture and American Culture (PCA/ACA) have a tradition of encouraging growth in intellectual inquiry, and the acceptance of Buffy Studies as a subgenre of the Vampire area in 2008 reflected the belief in this globally recognized, sustainable discipline. In this volume, Buffyologists delve into the intricate world of Sunnydale from multiple perspectives that cut across all academic disciplines, ranging from gender/sexuality to religion, making this collection an excellent reflection of the current body of work under the umbrella of Buffy Studies.

Conference Papers from the 2009/2010 Popular Culture/American Culture Associations

Buffy Conquers the Academy

Gender Warriors: Reading Contemporary Urban Fantasy offers classroom-ready original essays demonstrating how representations of gender and the kick-ass female urban fantasy warrior have unraveled and reinforced gender and genre expectations and tropes, making it a valuable text for any course.

U. Melissa Anyiwo

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