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This collection of interconnected essays relates the Undead in literature, art and other media to questions concerning gender, race, genre, technology, consumption and social change. A coherent narrative follows Enlightenment studies of the vampire's origins in folklore and folk panics, the sources of vampire fiction, through Romantic incarnations in 'Byron' and 'Polidori' to Le Fanu's 'Carmilla'. Further essays discuss the Undead in the context of "Dracula", fin-de-siècle decadence, Nazi Germany and early cinematic treatments. The rise of the sympathetic vampire is charted from Coppola's film, 'Bram Stoker's Dracula', to 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. More recent manifestations in novels, TV, Goth subculture, young adult fiction and cinema are dealt with in discussions of 'True Blood' and 'The Vampire Diaries'. Featuring distinguished contributors, including a prominent novelist, and aimed at interdisciplinary scholars or postgraduate students, it will also appeal to aficionados of creative writing and Undead enthusiasts 1. Introduction / Sam George and Bill Hughes -- 2. The deformed transformed; or, from bloodsucker to Byronic hero : Polidori and the literary vampire / Conrad Aquilina -- 3. Sheridan Le Fanu's vampires and Ireland's invited invasion / Julieann Ulin -- 4. 'He make in the mirror no reflect': undead aesthetics and mechanical reproduction : Dorian Gray, Dracula and David Reed's 'vampire painting' / Sam George -- 5. The vampire as dark and glorious necessity in George Sylvester Viereck's House of the Vampire and Hanns Heinz Ewers's Vampir / Lisa Lampert-Weissig -- 6. The undead in the kingdom of the shadows: the rise of the cinematic vampire / Stacey Abbott -- 7. Crossing oceans of time: Stoker, Coppola and the 'new vampire' film / Lindsey Scott 8. 'I feel strong. I feel different': transformations, vampires and language in Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Malgorzata Drewniok -- 9. Gothic Charm School; or, how vampires learned to sparkle / Catherine Spooner -- 10. A vampire heaven: the economics of salvation in Dracula and The Twilight Saga / Jennifer H. Williams -- 11. The Twilight Saga and the pleasures of spectatorship: the broken body and the shining body / Sara Wasson and Sarah Artt -- 12. The postmodern vampire in 'post-race' America: HBO's True Blood / Michelle J. Smith -- 13. Myriad mirrors: doppelgängers and doubling in The Vampire Diaries / Kimberley McMahon-Coleman -- 14. The vampire in the machine: exploring the undead interface / Ivan Phillips -- 15. 'Legally recognised undead': essence, difference and assimilation in Daniel Waters's Generation Dead / Bill Hughes -- 16. The elusive vampire: folklore and fiction : writing My Swordhand is Singing / Marcus Sedgwick
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