What's Been Going On and Upcoming Books on Vampire 3

Haven't been writing here much, as I've been busy with other things, namely research and going on a book-buying bender. Time for a catch-up and a peek at some forthcoming books I've stumbled across.

Firstly, it's great to hear that the guys behind the 2009 Vienna conference, 'Vampirismus und magia posthuma im Diskurs der Habsburgermonarchie im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert' are finally publishing their book. Got the scoop from Niels. It's currently available on pre-order. I've placed mine.

******************************

Speaking of Niels, his blog continues to blow my mind. Seriously, the guy just reels off his findings on obscure areas of vampiriana like they're nothing. If he's happy sharing that stuff publicly, I can't help wondering what secrets he isn't sharing. Sometimes, it makes me wanna throw in the towel. Some recent stand-outs include an overview of Zopf's famous vampire dissertation; uncovering sources for an obscure 'vampire' case; a source discussing magia posthuma in Poland, Hungary and Moravia; and debunking Stephen Hubner's 'vampire' status. Get your asses over there.

******************************

I rarely read vampire novles - or novels in general - but I have been reading Don Ecker's Past sins (Dark Realm Press, 2004). Let's say it ain't Twilight. If you're into your monstrous vamp (as I am), check it out. If you're one of them Kindle folk, click on the cover to buy a copy.

******************************

Speaking of buying things, I've found a few more books to add to the 'Upcoming books on vampires' collection. Stumbled across 'em while on the aforementioned book-buying bender.

Title: The theology of Dracula: reading the book of Stoker as sacred text
Author: Noël Montague-Étienne Rarignac
Release date: 19 July 2011 (Amazon); Spring/Summer 2011 (McFarland)
Worth the wait? Firstly, how fuckin' awesome is that cover? Seriously, look at it. Beautiful. As to the book itself, it's clearly one for the Dracula scholars. Another work focusing on literary interpretation, in this case, it 'represents a rereading of the horror classic as a Christian text, one that alchemizes Platonism, Gnosticism, Mariology and Christian resurrection in a tale that explores the grotesque' (McFarland's spiel). If that tickles your fancy, then it'll be the book for you. That said, I am interested in the religious overtones behind vampire texts, so it's definitely on my to-get list.

Title: Theorizing Twilight: essays on what’s at stake in a post-vampire world
Author: Maggie Parke & Natalie Wilson (eds)
Release date: 14 August 2011 (Amazon); Fall/Winter 2011 (McFarland)
Worth the wait? While I can barely repress a groan at another release dedicated to Twilight (I still have to give props to the saga for kickstarting the vampire boom, though), its publisher is a good indicator of quality. McFarland have an impressive track record when it comes to vampire stuff. Check out their vampire and Dracula titles.

Title: Vampires through the ages: lore & legends of the world's most notorious blood drinkers
Author: Brian Righi
Release date: 8 Janaury 2012
Worth the wait? While its title hits the mark in my preferred vampire niche ('lore & legends'), the 'notorious blood drinkers' angle makes me think the book's gonna give the same-old, same-old coverage to Elizabeth Bathory, John Haigh, Fritz Haarmann, et. al. Or, worse: Vlad Țepeș. Its comic book style cover doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence, either. I had a brief peek through Righi's Amazon oeuvre. Looks like he's into ghosts. Perhaps he'll view the subject through a paranormalist lens, which might be interesting. We'll see.

******************************

So, what have I been researching? Noneother than the Highgate vampire case. One element I've been pursuing is Highgate Cemetery's pre-1970 reputation for hauntings - vampiric or otherwise. There are certain texts which allude to to it, but don't seem to have been published before 1970 or the 1960s, which, of course, is highly suspicious. One stand-out's David Farrant's 'Invoking the vampire', New Witchcraft, vol. 1, no. 4, 1975, pp. 32–8:

Some interesting facts came to light. Firstly, it became apparent that stories of an apparition in Highgate cemetery had by no means begun with the then current sightings. Indeed, similar tales dated from the Victorian Era and interestingly enough more of them had "vampiristic" connections. One of the common tales of that time told of a "tall man dressed in black" who used to disappear mysteriously through the cemetery wall (p. 34).

In the same article, he also concluded, 'That Bram Stoker was influenced by the Highgate Vampire when he wrote "Dracula" . . . is almost certain' (ibid.). I've been asking Farrant how he obtained this information, i.e. 'oral tales, books, articles, whatever', over at The supernatural world forum. So far, I've been met with sidetracking, personal attacks, obscure allusions and the possibility that he might discuss them, if I explain my spiritual beliefs first - which I'd already done. Several times. Let's say I find it to be a highly unusual way to react to a simple request. Could we be dealing with a manufactured 'legend'? Quite possibly.

******************************

On a lighter note, I've been thinking of creating a new segment for this blog concerning beaut non-fiction vampire book covers. I occasionally express awe for them, so why not share a few which I think are particularly great? It's not set in stone, though. Just something I've been thinking of doing. See how it goes.

******************************

Last, but not least, don't forget to vote on the poll. There's only 10 days left, folks. Do you believe in vampires? Have your say today!

Vienna conference papers to be published

I briefly dealt with Niels' coverage of the 2009 Vienna conference, Vampirismus und magia posthuma im Diskurs der Habsburgermonarchie im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, in the previous entry. Here's a bit more info.

Niels mentioned in a recent blog entry that he'd 'read a proof of [his] paper for the proceedings of the 2009 conference on vampirism and magia posthuma in Vienna, so the book should be on its way within a not too distant future'. He attended the conference and discussed the papers read there.

Here's a (pdf) list of abstracts for the papers presented at the conference. Karin Barton's 'The Habsburg flea: notes on the cultural and literary history of an insect vampire' provided me with the lead for chasing the elusive, early mentions of nosferatu, even if its reference was rather offhand, as attested by her abstract:

By the time the Der Floh (The Flea, 1869-1919) started publishing its political and anticlerical satires in Vienna, the miniature vampire of the insect world that gave its name to this publication had already established a significant role in satirical and pornographic writings. This paper provides a brief survey of flea-literature in the Holy Roman Empire, starting with the late medieval and pseudo-Ovidian Carmen de pulice which combines the motifs of sex and death with vampiric overtones, to the prominent Renaissance trope of the war between fleas and their allegedly preferred hosts, women. The mock epic of the Strassburg satirist and Rabelais-translator Johann Fischart, Flöh Hatz, Weiber Tratz (Flea Hunt, Womens’ Defiance 1573/77) marks the apex of the trope in German literature. Fischart’s work contains a remarkable comparison of three blood meals from the perspective of a flea narrator: the flea’s natural and legitimate theft of blood, the Christian Eucharist, and the quasi-cannibalistic ingestion of a flea filled with fresh human blood by a coarse butcher-maid turned flea-slayer, with the latter being unfavorably linked to the infamous 15th century Walachian ruler »Traculam«. Fischart’s Flea Hunt will be discussed as the locus classicus of the polysemic presentation of the flea – as insect, man, devil – one encounters from the early modern period to the 19th century in a variety of writings and genres in which the realistic and ubiquitous bloodsucker appears as a literary forerunner and comical side-kick of the vampire.

Will her paper make the cut in the upcoming published proceedings? We'll wait and see.

I'm certainly looking forward to the book's publication (even if I won't be able to read it), because it's not often conferences focus on the folkloric/historical angle of the vampire. At least, in English language proceedings. Instead, they tend to concentrate on the vampire's appearance in fictional literature and film.


This is echoed in publications derived from such conferences, the primary examples being James Craig Holte's The fantastic vampire (2002) and Peter Day's Vampires: myths and metaphors of enduring evil (2006). I suspect this is because of the relative paucity of non-English sources consulted in vampire history research. I might come under fire for this, but most of the good stuff seems to be in German.

I mean, seriously, have a read through Niels' coverage of the subjects discussed there and see if you can find anything comparable in English with that level of depth (not including Barber, Perkowski, McClelland or Keysworth). Sigh. It's very frustrating. German publishers, if you can read this, start publishing translations in English, please!

One for the Dracula Scholars

I've heard rumblings about plans for an 'event' to commemorate the centennial passing of Bram Stoker at 'Hull University', so I decided to do some sleuthing to find out what was going on.

And by 'sleuthing', I of course mean 'Google searching'. Turns out the University of Hull is gonna be holding 'a three-day international conference'. The event's called Bram Stoker and Gothic Transformations. It'll be hosted at the Hull Campus of the University and in Whitby in April 2012. Has that whet your whistle? Then let's delve a little further. Here's its theme:

The conference is interested in the iconic significance of Stoker’s vampire novel and seeks to reappraise Stoker’s work within its fin-de-siècle cultural climate. It is also interested in exploring the broader context of the changing nature of Gothic productions from the late eighteenth century to the present. Using Dracula as a key point in the evolution of the genre, it seeks to explore the novel’s Gothic predecessors and influences, and the manner in which Stoker’s work renewed the Gothic for future generations.

They're accepting papers, if you wanna take part. Send an abstract of 250-300 words for a 20 minute paper to Dr Catherine Wynne (her e-mail addy's on the site). You've got till 1 May 2011 to submit. There are 20 topics on the site to choose from, but they appear to be flexible on this, so long as it caters to the conference's theme. Have fun!

Not Quite Dormant

Bruce A. McClelland, author of Slayers and Their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead (2006) is next in line for my Q & A series, so stay tuned for that.

****************************

In the meantime, here's a little something I came across not long ago: a call for papers to an upcoming conference on vampires, called "Open Graves, Open Minds: Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture":

The aim of the conference is to relate the undead in literature, art, and other media to questions concerning gender, technology, consumption, and social change. It will provide an interdisciplinary forum for the development of innovative and creative research and examine these creatures in all their various manifestations and cultural meaning.

It'll be held at the University of Hertfordshire, in the UK, on April 16-18.

****************************

Yesterday, I finished reading Mark Collins Jenkins' Vampire Forensics: Uncovering the Origins of an Enduring Legend (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2010), which I briefly discussed here.

With hindsight, I may have been a little hard on the book in my first assessment. For starters, I wasn't aware, at the time, that it had a notes section (277-287) to cover the source material of the chapters. This was because there are no footnotes throughout in the primary the text. I presume they weren't included to make the narrative flow more smoothly. But, of course, for the scholar, this can frustrating for cross-referencing purposes.

Interestingly, the coverage given to vampires proper, is relatively slim. The majority of the book seems to concern itself with funerary rites, burial practices and scraps of folklore from around the world, to give broader context for the vampire belief.

The range of sources (288-296) consulted for the book is fairly diverse and interesting, but also means that the book tends to lose sight of its vampire focus. I would've preferred the Slavic angle to be given much bigger scope than the treatment it got. For this aspect, I simply need to revert to the works of Perkowski, Barber and McClelland, which made the book a little redundant for me.

That's not to say it's not well-written, mind you. It certainly is. Collins has a rich prose and unites seemingly divergent threads under a single banner, but that doesn't cut it for me. Not when it comes to the undead. Especially with a book called Vampire Forensics.