Contagion and the Vampire

The Vampiric Body as Locus of Disease and Global Epidemics in 21st Century
2023
ISBN: 978-3-031-39201-6
Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 104 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 268 g

This book examines how the vampire has always been connected to ideas of infection, pollution and disease—even more so in the 21st century where it expresses the horrors of unseen and unstoppable disease and the foreboding and anxiety that accompany viral outbreaks and wider epidemics. Here the vampire gives physical form to the contagion and associated anxieties around the perceived causes and spread of disease, where it can take on many forms from animal to pestilential particulate matter, creeping shadows and even malignant weather systems. If blood is life, it is the body of the vampire that is death. This timely study looks at how and why the vampire continues to fulfil this function and posits that the true patient zero in the 21st century is no longer the dangerous, ancient, outsider from the East but is the undying monster that is Western culture itself.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bacon, Simon

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Gattungen
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Populärkultur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction.- Bodies.- Skin.- Blood.- Breath.

Über Autor(innen)

Simon Bacon is an independent scholar based in Poznan, Poland. He has written and edited 25+ books including Becoming Vampire (2017), Eco-vampires (2019), Nosferatu in the 21st Century (2023), 1000 Vampires on Screen (2 volumes, 2023), and The Palgrave Handbook of the Vampire (forthcoming).