Hospitality, Rape and Consent in Vampire Popular Culture: Letting the Wrong One In (Palgrave Gothic)

This unique study explores the vampire as host and guest, captor and hostage: a perfect lover and force of seductive predation. From Dracula and Carmilla, to True Blood and The Originals, the figure of the vampire embodies taboos and desires about hospitality, rape and consent. The first section welcomes the reader into ominous spaces of home, examining the vampire through concepts of hospitality and power, the metaphor of threshold, and the blurred boundaries between visitation, invasion and confinement. Section two reflects upon the historical development of vampire narratives and the monster as oppressed, alienated Other. Section three discusses cultural anxieties of youth, (im)maturity, childhood agency, abuse and the age of consent. The final section addresses vampire as intimate partner, mapping boundaries between invitation, passion and coercion. With its fresh insight into vampire genre, this book will appeal to academics, students and general public alike.

Dr David Baker lectures in film studies at the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University, Australia. He is author of “Bowie’s Covers, The Artist as Modernist” in Enchanting David Bowie (ed. T. Cinque, Ch. Moore and S. Redmond; 2015), and publishes widely on popular cinema genres.

Dr Stephanie Green is Deputy Head of School in Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University, Australia, and author of ‘Desiring Dexter: The Pangs and Pleasures of Serial Killer Body Technique’, Continuum 26 2012, 579-588 and The Public Lives of Charlotte and Marie Stopes (2013).

Dr Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska is Associate Professor at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, Jagiellonian University, Poland; author of Constructing Ethnic Identity of Swedish-American Children: Augustana Book Concern (1889-1962) (2011, in Polish), and co-editor of MonstrousManifestations: Realities and Imaginings of the Monster (2013).