Abstract: "A vampire is a mythological-folkloric creature that is said to feed on the blood of the living. It is a Gothic uncanny figure. So judging by the outlook, a vampire is not a figure with whom we should fall in love with. But judging by the current trends in popular culture, it is not true so. Though vampires were once portrayed as gruesome and horrible, with the passage of time, change in trends and paradigm shift in popular culture, they have been naturalized as normal. They have even attained celebrity status.
Showing posts with label Twilight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twilight. Show all posts
Video submission: Vampires Make it Into Academia
A group of academics met at the University of Hertfordshire in England to discuss the "Americanization" of the vampire genre. WSJ's Javier Espinoza reports.
Anne Rice, Author and Screenwriter of ‘Interview With the Vampire,’ Dies at 80
Her nearly 40 novels published over a half-century sold some 135 million copies, placing her among the most popular fantasy writers of all time.
By Lisa de los Reyes for The Hollywood Reporter, December 12, 2021
Video submission: The Strange Origin Of Vampires
Submitted by: Benjamin Michael
Have you ever wondered where vampire legends came from? It turns out the origin is pretty strange and unexpected, and the creature you're used to thinking of isn't much like how they began.
Vampires weren't always the pale, gaunt figure we think of when we see them today. And they definitely weren't glittery teenagers. They were something much more primal, and ugly, and... Weird.
The vampire you think of today was inspired by Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula. But the first appearance of the word vampire was almost 200 years earlier, so what did they look like in that time? Keep watching to find out!
Fact or Fiction: Are Vampires Real?
Raise the stakes with this all encompassing guide on all things vampires.
Author:
It's not your imagination: Vampires are everywhere. They're in vampire movies (hello, Interview with the Vampire) and all over television (we see you, The Vampire Diaries). They're the subject of countless books. (Twilight may have spawned a million vampiric copy cats, but if you want to get good and scared, try a classic: Stephen King's Salem's Lot.)
The Great New England Vampire Panic
Two hundred years after the Salem witch trials, farmers became convinced that their relatives were returning from the grave to feed on the living
Children playing near a hillside gravel mine found the first graves. One ran home to tell his mother, who was skeptical at first—until the boy produced a skull.
Because this was Griswold, Connecticut, in 1990, police initially thought the burials might be the work of a local serial killer named Michael Ross, and they taped off the area as a crime scene. But the brown, decaying bones turned out to be more than a century old. The Connecticut state archaeologist, Nick Bellantoni, soon determined that the hillside contained a colonial-era farm cemetery. New England is full of such unmarked family plots, and the 29 burials were typical of the 1700s and early 1800s: The dead, many of them children, were laid to rest in thrifty Yankee style, in simple wood coffins, without jewelry or even much clothing, their arms resting by their sides or crossed over their chests.
Except, that is, for Burial Number 4.
The Wild Evolution of Vampires, From Bram Stoker to Dracula Untold
As we’ve discussed here before, the tropes that define fantasy and horror literature are fluid, which is exactly why they persist. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, witches, ghosts—for several centuries, these archetypes have figured prominently in genre fiction, in no small part because they’ve adapted to suit the specific needs (and fears) of society at any given time.
The vampire in particular has had quite a colorful tenure. Vampiric creatures and spirits date at least as far back as Mesopotamia and Ancient Greece, but the vampire as we know it emerged in the early 1700s, when natives and foreigners alike began recording the folklore and superstitions of the Balkans, that cluster of eastern European countries that would become home to the most famous vampire of all time: Count Dracula.
The vampire in particular has had quite a colorful tenure. Vampiric creatures and spirits date at least as far back as Mesopotamia and Ancient Greece, but the vampire as we know it emerged in the early 1700s, when natives and foreigners alike began recording the folklore and superstitions of the Balkans, that cluster of eastern European countries that would become home to the most famous vampire of all time: Count Dracula.
Vampires and Biochemistry
Perhaps you are a fan of Twilight the movie or the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, or True Blood the television drama series created and produced by Alan Ball, based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris. Vampires with their frightening appearance and unusual powers and weaknesses can cause one to pause and question how this is possible. Can this mythicalogical being brought to life in Dracula, the 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker, featuring as its primary antagonist the vampire Count Dracula, have any basis in reality? Is there any connection to what we know about biological systems that could explain vampirism? I doubt that you would be surprised if I said yes, since this is a biochemistry course website.
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