In the predecessor to this book, The Universal Vampire: Origins and Evolution of a Legend, Brodman and Doan presented discussions of the development of the vampire in the West from the early Norse draugr figure to the medieval European revenant and ultimately to Dracula, who first appears as a vampire in Anglo-Irish Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, published in 1897. The essays in that collection also looked at the non-Western vampire in Native American and Mesoamerican traditions, Asian and Russian vampires in popular culture, and the vampire in contemporary novels, film and television. The essays in this collection continue that multi-cultural and multigeneric discussion by tracing the development of the post-modern vampire, in films ranging from Shadow of a Doubt to Blade, The Wisdom of Crocodiles and Interview with the Vampire; the male and female vampires in the Twilight films, Sookie Stackhouse novels and TrueBlood television series; the vampire in African American women’s fiction, Anne Rice’s novels and in the post-apocalyptic I Am Legend; vampires in Japanese anime; and finally, to bring the volumes full circle, the presentation of a new Irish Dracula play, adapted from the novel and set in 1888.

This book presents the vampire as a truly international phenomenon, not restricted to the original folk character, the literary vampire (such as Dracula), or 20th-century film versions. Instead, we move around the world and into the 21st-century: reshaping the legend into a post-modern image that is psychologically and socially relevant while retaining elements of folklore mixed with a hint of science fiction. This book is intended for aficionados of folklore and mythology, as well as literary and film scholars, vampire devotees, and a more general audience interested in the supern.

This book, about real vampires and the communities they have formed, explores the modern world of vampirism in all its amazing variety. Long before Dracula, people were fascinated by vampires. The interest has continued in more recent times with Anne Rice's Lestat novels, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the HBO series True Blood, and the immensely popular Twilight. But vampires are not just the stuff of folklore and fiction. Based upon extensive interviews with members of the Atlanta Vampire Alliance and others within vampire communities throughout the United States, this fascinating book looks at the details of real vampire life and the many expressions of vampirism as it now exists. In Vampires Today: The Truth about Modern Vampirism, Joseph Laycock argues that today's vampires are best understood as an identity group, and that vampirism has caused a profound change in how individuals choose to define themselves. As vampires come "out of the coffin," as followers of a "religion" or "lifestyle" or as people biologically distinct from other humans, their confrontation with mainstream society will raise questions, as it does here, about how we define "normal" and what it means to be human.

Vampires are back - and this time they want to be us, not drain us. This collection considers the recent phenomena of Twilight and True Blood, as well as authors such as Kim Newman and Matt Haig, films such as The Breed and Interview with the Vampire, and television programmes such as Being Human and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Vampires are beings of myth: folkloric creatures who live off the blood of the living and have been recorded in nearly every culture around the world since the beginning of man. This work traces the evolution of the vampire, from its roots in ancient mythology to obscure folk tales and legends, leading up to when these foul beings transformed into the suave Byronic heroes that continue to influence the world's view of the vampire today. It also examines key individuals in history involved in reshaping our concept of the creature. Popular culture is explored, along with the development of the vampire into the protagonist in plays and poems and novels. Sixty-one frightening images bring the topic right to your front door. Will you invite the visitor in?

An investigation of the modification and transformation of the vampire; contending that the vampire has evolved from a figure of fear to one of domestication and compassion. Researching into vampires and taking into account the historical evolution and contemporary significance this book will explore myth, repressed memories, desires and primordial images giving rise to the archetypal hero that is the modern vampire. With reference to Sigmund Freud's models and using Carl Jung's framework, including the collective i.e. the Shadow, Id, Ego, Superego will be explored in order to investigate this change from 'Beast to Beauty'. Studying cultural archetypes in relation to belief and historical evidence and following Freudian and Jungian approaches to psychoanalysis provides a pragmatic base for understanding the human psyche. The vampire show the evolution from a figure of fear to a figure of compassion and domestication.

“Vampires. Why do we care? In these pages you will find what is very simply, the most literate, imaginative, and just plain fascinating answer to that question ever written.” ?Whitley Strieber In a culture that does not do death particularly well, we are obsessed with mortality. Margot Adler writes, “Vampires let us play with death and the issue of mortality. They let us ponder what it would mean to be truly long lived. Would the long view allow us to see the world differently, imagine social structures differently? Would it increase or decrease our reverence for the planet? Vampires allow us to ask questions we usually bury.” As Adler, a longtime NPR correspondent and question asker, sat vigil at her dying husband’s bedside, she found herself newly drawn to vampire novels and their explorations of mortality. Over the next four years—by now she has read more than 270 vampire novels, from teen to adult, from gothic to modern, from detective to comic—she began to see just how each era creates the vampires it needs. Dracula, an Eastern European monster, was the perfect vehicle for 19th-century England’s fear of outsiders and of disease seeping in through its large ports. In 1960s America, Dark Shadows gave us the morally conflicted vampire struggling against his own predatory nature, who still enthralls us today. Think Spike and Angel, Stefan and Damon, Bill and Eric, the Cullens. Vampires Are Us explores the issues of power, politics, morality, identity, and even the fate of the planet that show up in vampire novels today. Perhaps, Adler suggests, our blood is oil, perhaps our prey is the planet. Perhaps vampires are us.