Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The Lure of the Vampire: Gender, Fiction and Fandom from Bram Stoker to Buffy the Vampire Slayer explores the curiosity and fascination surrounding the enduring myth of Dracula and vampires. Over one hundred years after Bram Stoker's influential novel was published, an interest in vampires is still prevalent in popular culture. This is suggested by the recent popularity of such television shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it's spin-off,Angel. Milly Williamson examines this phenomena and looks at the issues of gender pertaining to both vampires and their followers, the modern portrayal of vampires, the nature of identity and identification, and the fans themselves.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgements (p. vii)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• Gender and the Dracula: What's at Stake? (p. 5)
• Vampire Transformations: Gothic Melodrama, Sympathy and the Self (p. 29)
• Fans Re-reading the Vampire: Issues of Gender and the Pleasures of Pathos (p. 51)
• The Predicament of the Vampire and the Slayer: Gothic melodrama in modern America (p. 76)
• Vampire Fandom: Rebels Without a Cause? Theorising Fandom in the Field of Cultural Production (p. 97)
• Vampire Fandom in the Field of Cultural Production: A Vampire Fan Club Case Study (p. 119)
• Donning Fangs: Gender, the Vampire and Dressing the Self (p. 142)
• Rewriting the Vampire: Gender, Sexuality and Fan Fiction (p. 164)
• Conclusion - The Vampire and the Self: the Dilemmas of the Dead and the Realm of the Possible (p. 183)
• Notes (p. 191)
• Bibliography (p. 196)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Readers in a wide range of academic disciplines--literary studies, film studies, cultural studies, sociology, women's studies--may find Williamson's argument appealing, but this book is not an easy read. In an early chapter, Williamson (Centre for Mass Communications Research, Univ. of Leicester, UK) provides provocative readings of Dracula and other 19th-century vampire narratives, plus later film adaptations, focusing on the ways in which these texts were often consciously directed toward a female audience. In subsequent chapters, the author broadens her focus to include women's responses to vampire fan clubs, exploring such diverse subjects as women's involvement with Internet discussion lists, fan conventions, and vampire fan fiction. Williamson's impressive engagement with a wide variety of cultural theory is evident throughout, but the book (a revised doctoral dissertation) includes extensive and sometimes distracting reviews of scholarship that tend to bog down her argument. These flaws notwithstanding, this volume presents a highly original and provocative interdisciplinary analysis of a significant cultural phenomenon that has important implications for a surprisingly broad range of disciplines. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. R. D. Morrison Morehead State University