Zero to Hero: The Transitional Vampire and Human Becoming
Zero to Hero: The Transitional Vampire and Human Becoming

Summary/Abstract: Just as Count Dracula from Bram Stoker’s novel could change and mutate at will from bat to wolf, and from swarm or rats to a miasmic mist, this paper will show the many and varied transitions and transformations of the vampire in European culture. From factual starts of eye-witness accounts and official reports from the 18th century, to evolutionary endings in cinematic pre-cursors to actual medical advancements, the blood-sucking undead have metamorphosed across genres and mediums, from fact to fiction, and from page to screen and beyond. Nina Auerbach, in her influential book Our Vampires, Ourselves famously said that each generation creates the vampire that it needs and this observation will, indeed, form the trajectory of this examination. It will also highlight the revenant’s capacity to act as a buffer and so not just reflecting the age it lives in but prefiguring the next.

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