Teaching with Vampires

This edited volume provides pedagogical tools for those who teach – and would like to teach – with the most iconic of monsters: the vampire. Vampires are showing up with increasing frequency in the college classroom and there are a growing number of courses devoted solely to the Undead. This collection draws from a diverse range of teaching approaches, including the theoretical framing of vampire texts in a broad range of settings, that demonstrate the myriad of ways vampires are used to teach about marginalization, empathy, and inspire social justice. With chapters from global scholars, this essential text illustrates the burgeoning field of vampire studies and the popularity in classrooms at every level around the world, from gothic fiction to television courses.

U. Melissa Anyiwo is an Associate Professor of History and Director of Black Studies at the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Co-Chair of the Vampire Studies Area of the National Popular Culture Association. Her published work on vampires includes the edited collections Buffy Conquers the Academy (2013), Race in the Vampire Narrative (2015), Gender in the Vampire Narrative (2016), Gender Warriors: Reading Contemporary Urban Fantasy (2018) and Queering the Vampire Narrative (2022). Finally, she starred in the documentary “Lestat, Louis, and the Vampire Phenomenon” for the Interview with the Vampire 20th Anniversary Edition DVD (2014).