Difference between revisions of "S Accounts of the Count: Dracula Rising"

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COURSE OUTLINE

3.02.120: S Accounts of the Count: Dracula Rising

• [Module] ang612 - Periods and Key Figures

• [Credits] 6 KP

• [Instructor] Dr. Christian Lassen

• [Time] Thursday, 12.15-13.45

• [Room] TBA

• [Description] TBA

• [Office Hours] Wednesday, 11.00-12.00 (online)

PRIMARY TEXTS

• Polidori, John. "The Vampyre." 1819. The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre. Oxford: OUP, 2008. 1-24. Print.

• Sheridan Le Fanu, J. "Carmilla." 1872. In a Glass Darkly. Oxford: OUP, 2008. 243-319. Print.

• Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1897. Eds. Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal. New York and London: Norton, 1997. Print.

• Interview with a Vampire. 1994. Dir. Neil Jordan. Perf. Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst. Warner Bros., 2003. DVD.

• Twilight. 2008. Dir. Catherine Hardwicke. Perf. Kristen Steward and Robert Pattinson. Summit Entertainment, 2010. DVD.

ASSIGNMENTS

• [Prüfungsleistung] (Gruppen-)Referat (max. TBA Personen; ca. 45 min./ 20 Folien) mit Schriftlicher Ausarbeitung (10 Seiten) [oder in Ausnahmefällen: Hausarbeit (15 Seiten)]

• [Aktive Teilnahme] 3 Abstracts, jeweils inklusive Thema, Forschungsstand, These und Outline des Arguments (je 1 Seite insgesamt)

Please note that written assignments (abstracts, short term papers, long term papers) need to be composed according to the style sheet ("Leitfaden")of the University of Oldenburg, which can be accessed via the 'Institutswiki'-page of the English department. The style sheet not only provides relevant information on how to write a correct bibliography but it may also help you to structure your work according to academic standards.

Please make sure to sign the "Erklärung zum 'Plagiat'" and to attach it to your research papers.

• [Abgabefrist] September 15, 2025

Session One, April 10: Introduction

Organisational Matters

• Assignments

Assignments are graded and mandatory. In order to obtain 6 credits (KP), you will have to give an (group) presentation (Referat, 20 Folien) on one of the presentation topics specified in the syllabus. In addition to that, you will have to hand in a short term paper (Ausarbeitung, 10 Seiten) by the end of term (15. September). In exceptional cases, you may hand in a long term paper (Hausarbeit, 15 Seiten) instead of the above. However, an exception is only granted upon prior consultation.

• Presentation Topics, Presentation Groups

Presentation Topics are specified in your syllabus. In order to prepare your presentations, please pick a topic, get together in groups (see below) and write up a power-point presentation. Save the file and send it on to me so that we can discuss your presentation in your preparatory session. Preparatory sessions take place one week before your presentation is due, i.e. at the end of the session preceding your presentation. After the preparatory session, revise your presentation and make your file available on Stud.IP on the Friday before your presentation is due so that all participants can read/ watch the presentation in time, i.e. before the session.

Requests regarding your choice of presentation topics can be send to me via e-mail, starting on Wednesday, March 26. Please send me three possible presentation topics and prioritise them according to your preferences. I will sign you in in the order of the requests' arrival. Please check this page regularly to see if your requests have been met.

• Active Participation

Active Participation is ungraded but mandatory. In order to fulfil the requirements, you will have to attend class regularly (cf. BPO, FK III) and prepare the presentations prior to the relevant sessions. Moreover, you will have to write three abstracts, each including a topic, a state of research, a thesis statement, and a brief outline of your argument (approx. 1 page), in the course of the seminar. You can choose your own topic; however: all abstracts have to address different primary texts. In other words, your abstracts will have to cover the three primary materials from the course. Abstracts are due by the end of the week (i.e. Friday) that marks the ending of the respective sections, i.e. due date "The Vampyre": April 25; due date "Carmilla": May 09; due date Dracula: June 06; due date Interview with the Vampire June 20; due date Twilight: July 04)

   Summary: Presentations

1. Pick a presentation topic and contact me via e-mail (starting October 02). Check below for available places. Presentation groups may consist of max. 3 people. Send me three suggestions and prioritise them accoording to preference.

2. Contact the other members of your group and prepare your presentation, i.e. power-point presentation.

3. Send me your presentation at least 8 days before your presentation is scheduled.

4. Discuss your presentation with me in your preparatory session 7 days, i.e week, before your presentation is scheduled. Preparatory sessions take place during the second part of class, i.e. Wednesday 9.30 am - 9.45 am.

5. Revise and upload your file on the Friday before your presentation is scheduled.

6. Give your presentation in class.

Session Two, April 17: Theory Session

Theory Texts

• Carroll, Samantha J. "Putting the 'Neo' Back Into 'Neo-Victorian': The Neo-Victorian Novel as Postmodern Revisionist Fiction." Neo-Victorian Studies 3.2 (2010): 172-205.
• Llewellyn, Mark. "What Is Neo-Victorian Studies?" Neo-Victorian Studies 1.1 (2008): 164-85.

Guiding Questions

On the texts:

• How is the relationship between Victorian and neo-Victorian texts conceptualised? What is 'Victorian' about Neo-Victorianism and what is 'neo' about Neo-Victorianism?
• What is the critical potiential of the postmodern 'neo' in 'neo-Victorian'? What difference does it make? Or doesn't it make any difference at all?
• Why is it simplistic to read neo-Victorian texts solely with regard to the Victorian tradition?
• If neo-Victorian texts revisit and revise Victorian texts, then: what do these revisions reveal about the past? And what do they reveal about the present?
• How can you relate these revisions to textual practices: who speaks? (narration); who sees? (focalisation); matters concerning perceptibility and reliability? And what are potential effects of shifts in narration and focalisation? Or in other words: Who gets to speak? Who gets to see? Who is telling the story? In a neo-Victorian text (as opposed to a Victorian text)?

Beyond the texts:

• Thinking about Victorian ("Carmilla", Dracula) or even pre-Victorian ("The Vampyre") representations of the vampire, what are some of the features and character traits that have been ascribed and attributed to this stock character?
• Why would these representations count among the primary examples of Victorian Gothic fiction?
• What contemporary, i.e. Victorian, discourses can you discern in these texts? And which relevant contexts and issues could they be related to?
• In view of postmodern/neo-Victorian (Interview with a Vampire, Twilight) representations of the vampire, what differences in representation can you discern? And what are their potential effects?
• What do these differences revise about past, i.e. Victorian, representations? And what do they reveal about present, i.e. postmodern and neo-Victorian, representations?
• Do postmodern/neo-Victorian representations of the vampire attribute a different set of features and character traits to the stock character? Or are they 'variations' on the same themes?
• Hypothesis: If, in any given culture, the stock character of the vampire embodies qualities that are secretly desired, yet outwardly disavowed, demonised, and displaced onto the 'Other', then: what is it that these variations on the stock character of the vampire can reveal about these cultures?

Video Conference

• Video Conference Group:

Session Three, April 24: Blood Brothers: Vampirism and Male Homoeroticism

Primary Material

• Polidori, John. "The Vampyre." 1819. The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre. Oxford: OUP, 2008. 1-24. Print.

Secondary Material

• Auerbach, Nina. Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago and London: The U of Chicago P, 1995. 11-38.
• Skarda, Patricia L. "Vampirism and Plagiarism: Byron's Influence and Polidori's Practice." SiR: Studies in Romanticism 28 (Summer 1989): 249-69.

Presentation

• TBA

• Presentation Group:

Preparatory Group:

   April 25: Abstract "The Vampyre" due

Session Four, May 08: The Blood Countess: Vampirism, Sexology, and Female Same-Sex Desire

Primary Material

• Sheridan Le Fanu, J. "Carmilla." 1872. In a Glass Darkly. Oxford: OUP, 2008. 243-319. Print.

Secondary Material

• Antrim Major, Adrienne. "Other Love: Le Fanu's Carmilla as Lesbian Gothic." Horrifying Sex: Essays on Sexual Difference in Gothic Literature. Ed. Ruth Bienstock Anolik. Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland, 2007. 151-66.
• Palmer, Paulina. "The Lesbian Vampire: Transgressive Sexuality." Horrifying Sex: Essays on Sexual Difference in Gothic Literature. Ed. Ruth Bienstock Anolik. Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland, 2007. 203-32.

Further Reading

• Auerbach, Nina. Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago and London: The U of Chicago P, 1995. 38-60.

Presentation

• A Case Study in Female Same-Sex Desire, or: "Carmilla"'s Narratological Design and the Lesbian Origins of Vampirism

• Presentation Group:

Preparatory Group:

   May, 09: Abstract "Carmilla" due

Session Five, May 15: Blood v. Soil: Vampirism and (Reversed) Colonization

Primary Material

• Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1897. Eds. Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal. New York and London: Norton, 1997. Print.

Secondary Material

• Arata, Stephen D. "The Occidental Tourist: Dracula and the Anxiety of Reverse Colonization." Victorian Studies 33.4 (Summer 1990): 621-45.
• Viragh, Attila. "Can the Vampire Speak? Dracula as Discourse on Cultural Extinction." ELT 56.2 (2013): 231-45.

Presentation

• The Empire Bites Back, or: Cultural Resistances to Colonization in Dracula

• Presentation Group:

Preparatory Group:

Session Six, May 22: Blood Samples: Vampirism, Addiction and Substance Abuse

Primary Material

• Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1897. Eds. Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal. New York and London: Norton, 1997. Print.

Secondary Material

• Aikens, Kristina. "Battling Addictions in Dracula." Gothic Studies 11.2 (2009): 41-51.
• Harrison, Debbie. "Doctors, Drugs, and Addiction: Professional Integrity in Peril at the Fin de Siècle." Gothic Studies 11.2 (2009): 52-62.

Presentation

• Addiction and Substance Abuse, or: Doctors, Drugs, and 'Degeneracy' in Dracula

• Presentation Group:

Preparatory Group:

Session Seven, June 05: Blood Circulation: Vampirism, Male Homosociality and Homosexual Panic

Primary Material

• Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1897. Eds. Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal. New York and London: Norton, 1997. Print.

Secondary Material

• Craft, Christopher. Another Kind of Love: Male Homosexual Desire in English Discourse, 1850-1920. Berkeley et al.: U of California P, 1994. 71-105.
• Clark, Damion. "Preying on the Pervert: The Uses of Homosexual Panic in Bram Stoker's Dracula." Horrifying Sex: Essays on Sexual Difference in Gothic Literature. Ed. Ruth Bienstock Anolik. Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland, 2007. 167-76.

Further Reading

• Schaffer, Talia. "'A Wilde Desire Took Me': The Homoerotic History of Dracula." ELH 61.2 (Summer 1994): 381-425.

Presentation

• What You Get Is What You Give, or: Blood Donation, Male Homoeroticism, and Male Homosexual Panic

• Presentation Group:

Preparatory Group:

   June 06: Abstract Dracula due

Session Eight, June 12: Blood Relations: Vampirism and the Queer Family

Primary Material

• Interview with the Vampire. 1994. Dir. Neil Jordan. Perf. Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst. Warner Bros., 2003. DVD.

Secondary Material

• Benefiel, Candace R. "Blood Relations: The Gothic Perversion of the Nuclear Family in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire." The Journal of Popular Culture 38.2 (2004): 261-73.
• Bruhm, Steven. "Gothic Sexualities." Teaching the GothicEds. Anna Powell and Andrew Smith. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 93-106.

Presentation

• Feeding on Family Values, or: Ambivalent Representations of the Queer Family in Interview with the Vampire

• Presentation Group:

Preparatory Group:

Session Nine, June 19: Blood Disease: Vampirism and AIDS

Primary Material

• Interview with the Vampire. 1994. Dir. Neil Jordan. Perf. Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst. Warner Bros., 2003. DVD.

Secondary Material

• Haggerty, George E. "Anne Rice and the Queering of Culture." Novel: A Forum on Fiction 32.1 (Autumn 1998): 5-18.
• Auerbach, Nina. Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago and London: The U of Chicago P, 1995. 163-92.

Presentation

• Dieting or Dying, or: AIDS, Abstinence, and Anti-Gay Policies of Blame

• Presentation Group:

Preparatory Group:

   June 20: Abstract Interview With the Vampire due

Session Ten, June 26: Bloody Racists: Vampirism and White Supremacy

Primary Material

• Twilight. 2008. Dir. Catherine Hardwicke. Perf. Kristen Steward and Robert Pattinson. Summit Entertainment, 2010. DVD.

Secondary Material

• Borgia, Danielle N. "Twilight: The Glamorization of Abuse, Codependency, and White Privilege." The Journal of Popular Culture 37.1 (2014): 152-73.
• Jensen, Kristian. "Noble Werewolves or Native Shape-Shifters." The Twilight Mystique: Critical Essays on the Novels and Films. Eds. Amy M. Clarke and Marijane Osborn. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. 92-105.

Presentation

• Of Vampires and Werewolves, or: Racist Representations of Caucasian and Native American Stereotypes in Twilight

• Presentation Group:

Preparatory Group:

Session Eleven, July 03: Bloody Misogynists: Vampirism and Anti-Feminism

Primary Material

• Twilight. 2008. Dir. Catherine Hardwicke. Perf. Kristen Steward and Robert Pattinson. Summit Entertainment, 2010. DVD.

Secondary Material

• Jarvis, Christine. "The Twilight of Feminism? Stephanie Meyer's Saga and the Contradictions of Contemporary Girlhood." Children's Literature in Education 45 (2014): 101-15.
• Bliss, Ann V. "Abstinence, American Style." The Twilight Mystique: Critical Essays on the Novels and Films. Eds. Amy M. Clarke and Marijane Osborn. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. 107-20.

Presentation

• No Sex Before Marriage, or: Anti-Feminism and the Will to Sexual Submission in Twilight

• Presentation Group:

   July 04: Abstract Twilight due

Session Twelve, July 10: RPO Session

Guidelines for finding your RPO topic:

Your RPO topic needs to be related to at least one of the primary texts.

   September, 15: Term Paper due

Please upload your paper to the folder "Ausarbeitungen und Hausarbeiten" on our Stud.IP page.

Bitte stellen Sie Ihre Prüfungsleistung in den Ordner "Ausarbeitungen und Hausarbeiten" auf unserer Stud.IP-Seite ein.