S Accounts of the Count: Dracula Rising

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] A01 0-009

• [Office Hours] Friday, 10.30-11.30 (online)

PRIMARY TEXTS

• Polidori, John. "The Vampyre." 1819. The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre. Oxford: OUP, 2008. 1-24. Print. [ISBN: 978-0-19-955241-2]

• Sheridan Le Fanu, J. "Carmilla." 1872. In a Glass Darkly. Oxford: OUP, 2008. 243-319. Print. [ISBN: 978-0-19-953798-3]

• Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1897. Eds. John Edgar Browning and David J. Skal. New York and London: Norton, 2021. Print. [ISBN: 978-0-393-67920-5]

• Interview with the 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. 3 Personen; ca. 30 min./ 20 Folien) mit Schriftlicher Ausarbeitung (10 Seiten) [oder in Ausnahmefällen: Hausarbeit (15 Seiten)]

• [Aktive Teilnahme] Regular Attendance (cf. Richtlinien der BPO, Fakultät III, Studiendekanat), Course Preparation (i.e. reading/preparing the presentations before the session),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

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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 27. 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 March 27). 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. Thursday 13.30 am - 13.45 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

• Auerbach, Nina. "Introduction: Living with the Undead." Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995. 1-11. Print.
• Halberstam, Jack (*Judith). "Parasites and Perverts: An Introduction to Gothic Monstrosity." Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters. Durham and London: Duke UP, 1995. 1-27. Print.

Guiding Questions

Group I: The Monster and the Self

• "in [Victorian] Gothic, crime is embodied within a specially deviant form - the monster - that announces itself (de-monstrates) as the place of corruption. Furthermore, [...] Gothic infiltrates the Victorian novel as a symptomatic moment in which boundaries between good and evil, health and perversity, crime and punishment, truth and deception, inside and outside dissolve and threaten the integrity of the narrative self." (Halberstam 2)
• "Gothic Fiction of the nineteenh century specifically used the body of the monster to produce race, class, gender, and sexuality within narratives about the relation between subjectivities and certain bodies" (Halberstam 6)

Discuss and comment on the above quotes by looking at the narratological design and the character constellation of some of our primary texts. How are the relationships between monster/vampire and narrator/focaliser represented in constellations like Lord Ruthven/Aubrey; Carmilla/Laura; Dracula/Mina-Lucy-Jonathan? How are the respective identities of monster/vampire and narrator and/or focaliser construed?

Group II: Monstrosity and Historical/Cultural Change

• "Monstrosity (and the fear it gives rise to) is historically conditioned rather than a psychological universal." (Halberstam 6)
• "How sexuality became the dominant mark of otherness is a question that we may begin to answer by deconstructing Victorian Gothic monsters and by examining the constitutive features of the horror they represent. If, for example, many nineteenth-century monsters seem to produce fears more clearly related to racial identity than gender identity, how is it that we as modern readers have been unable to discern these more intricate contours of difference?" (Halberstam 7)

Discuss and comment on the above quotes by comparing the constructions of Gothic monstrosity with regard to their respective historical and cultural contexts. How is the cultural production of monstrosity changing? And how do current discursive formations impact both our reading of past monsters and our production of present-day monsters? Using Dracula as an example, what are some of the othernesses attributed to the vampire? How do theses othernesses mirror Victorian anxieties about discourses such as gender, sexuality, nationality, the Empire, etc.? How do current anxieties and fears inform present-day readings of the novel?

Group III: Affective Responses to Monstrosity

• Building on Eve Sedgwick's observations, Halberstam points out that the Gothic "inspires fear and desire at the same time - fear of and desire for the other, fear of and desire for the possible latent perversity lurking within the reader herself. But fear and desire within the same body produce a disciplinary effect. In other words, the Victorian public could consume Gothic novels in vast quantities without regarding such a material as debased because Gothic gave readers the thrill of reading about so-called perverse activities while identifying aberrant sexuality as a condition of otherness and as an essential trait of foreign bodies. The monster, of course, marks the distance between the perverse and the supposedly disciplined sexuality of the reader." (Halberstam 13)

Discuss and comment on the above quote by sounding out how the ambivalent affective responses - i.e., fear/anxiety and pleasure - to Gothic monstrosity produce both paranoid and disciplining effects? How are disciplining and paranoia as psychological mechanisms inserted into the respective texts? And in what ways may the insertion of paranoia in fact serve as a means of social control and surveillance- insofar as it encourages readers to police and to discipline (in the Foucauldian sense of the term) their own subjective behaviours, desires, or even their sense of self? How do these mechanisms succeed in producing homosexual panic as a condition of social consequence?

Preparatory Session: Luisa Holsten, Omar Zerarka, Selin Sedef

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

• Rigby, Mair. "Prey to some cureless disquiet”: Polidori’s Queer Vampyre at the Margins of Romanticism." Romanticism on the Net 36-37 (2004-2005): no pag. Web.
• Auerbach, Nina. "Giving Up the Ghosts: Nineteenth-Century Vampires." Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago and London: The U of Chicago P, 1995. 11-60. Print. [esp. 11-38].

Presentation

• Between Men, or: Homosocial Bonds, Homoerotic Desires, and Homosexual Panic in Polidori's "The Vampyre"

• Presentation Group: Luisa Holsten, Omar Zerarka, Selin Sedef

Preparatory Session: Clara Goldmann, Berfin Özbek, Käthe Nickel

   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. Print.
• 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. Print.

Further Reading

• Auerbach, Nina. "Giving Up the Ghosts: Nineteenth-Century Vampires." Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago and London: The U of Chicago P, 1995. 11-60. Print. [esp. 38-60].

Presentation

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

• Presentation Group: Clara Goldmann, Berfin Özbek, Käthe Nickel

Preparatory Session: Christina Maarfeld, Davin Schweizer, Jan Vogelsang

   May, 09: Abstract "Carmilla" due

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

Primary Material

• Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1897. Eds. John Edgar Browning and David J. Skal. New York and London: Norton, 2021. Print.

Secondary Material

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

Presentation

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

• Presentation Group: Christina Maarfeld, Davin Schweizer, Jan Vogelsang

Preparatory Session: Paula Möller, Leonard Heyn, Jan Großkortenhaus

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

Primary Material

• Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1897. Eds. John Edgar Browning and David J. Skal. New York and London: Norton, 2021. Print.

Secondary Material

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

Presentation

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

• Presentation Group: Paula Möller, Leonard Heyn, Jan Großkortenhaus

Preparatory Session: Viktoria Dick, Niklas Hand, Oscar Bittermann

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

Primary Material

• Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1897. Eds. John Edgar Browning and David J. Skal. New York and London: Norton, 2021. 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. Print.
• 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. Print.

Presentation

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

• Presentation Group: Viktoria Dick, Niklas Hand, Oscar Bittermann

Preparatory Session: Sina Ries, Jennifer Hardy, Cordelia Bohlmann

   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. Print.
• Bruhm, Steven. "Gothic Sexualities." Teaching the GothicEds. Anna Powell and Andrew Smith. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 93-106. Print.

Presentation

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

• Presentation Group: Sina Ries, Jennifer Hardy, Cordelia Bohlmann

Preparatory Session: Suheila Chamdine, Dilara Bülbül, Edward Jordan

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. Print.
• Auerbach, Nina. Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago and London: The U of Chicago P, 1995. 163-92. Print.

Presentation

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

• Presentation Group: Suheila Chamdine, Dilara Bülbül, Edward Jordan

Preparatory Session: Rebekka Hänßler, Seraphim Remer, Jazzmine Menia

   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. Print.
• 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. Print.

Presentation

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

• Presentation Group: Rebekka Hänßler, Seraphim Remer, Jazzmine Menia

Preparatory Session: Jamie de Vries, Zoé Theilen, Jonah Szabo

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. Print.
• 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. Print.

Presentation

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

• Presentation Group: Jamie de Vries, Zoé Theilen, Jonah Szabo

   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.