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.

Autorentext

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-Biekowska 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).

Inhalt

1. Artful Courtship and Murderous Enjoyment: Introduction - David Baker, Stephanie Green, Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Biekowska.- 2. Part I: The Dangers of Crossing the Threshold: The Interplay of Power between Host and Guest. 2. Crossing Borders: Hospitality in Bram Stoker's Dracula and Florence Marryat's The Blood of the Vampire - Maria Parrino.- 3. Come on in! Home, Hospitality and the Construction of Power in The Originals - Verena Bernardi.- 4. Fans and Vampires at Home - Lucy I. Baker.- 5. Breaking and Entering: Psychic Violation, Metempsychosis and the Uninvited Female Vampire - Simon Bacon.- 6. Part II - Vampiric Bodies: History, Humanity and Subversion. 6. Time and the Vampire: The Idea of the Past in Carmilla and Dracula - Stephanie Green.- 7. Breach of Consent: Jean Rollin and Le Viol du Vampire - David Baker.- 8. Part III - Those Bloody Kids: Consent, Liminality and the Uncanny in the Figure of Vampire Child. 8. Coming of Age, With Vampires - Amanda Howell.- 9. Consensual and Nonconsensual Sucking: Vampires and Transitional Phenomena - Terrie Waddell.- 10. Part IV - Bloody Romance: Vampires in Intimate Relationships. 10. It's a Love StoryInvolving Vampires: The Cinematic Trope of the Wedded Bloodsucker - Samantha Lindop.- 11. The Lower Dog in the Room: Patriarchal Terrorism and the Question of Consent in Charlaine Harris's The Southern Vampire Mysteries - Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Biekowska.- 12. Seductive Kindness: Power, Space and Lesbian Vampires - Alexandra Heller-Nicholas.