Women with Bite (Halloween Vampire Special)

Vampires: marginalised, blood-sucking, sexy … it’s hard to avoid these glamorous, dangerous creatures as they hold sway over the Western imagination. But, as the Twilight generation eagerly flocks to the cinema to watch film after film, do we really understand how and why these mythical creatures have come to dominate popular culture?

This lecture will go back to the vampire of folklore and legend, tracing its steps from the far East into Western society. Particularly the vampiress of old will be highlighted in this talk to show how beautiful women and hideous monsters are equally dangerous in the fanged world of vampirism.

Cancer with a Purpose: Putting the Cinematic Vampire under the Microscope (Dr Stacey Abbott)

While Dark Romance seems to be the dominant trend for the contemporary vampire, there is another trend within vampire cinema that has been quite pervasive in recent years, if not as highly commented upon. This is the re-imagining of the vampire through the language and iconography of science. This presentation will examine the relationship that has existed between the vampire myth and science from as early as 18th Century Folklore and 19th Century literature through to contemporary cinema. The talk will focus particularly upon the late 20th and early 21st Century films that have completely reinvented the genre through the imagery and language of science and explore how the modern vampire film has come to express contemporary anxieties about developments within science and their impact upon humanity and the body itself.