Vampire as Cultural Critic
Course Description
Summary
This seminar explores the cinematic vampire as a symbolic curator, critic, and connoisseur, one who collects, consumes, and reflects cultural concerns. Through films paired with philosophical and critical texts, we examine how vampires serve as mirrors, archivists, aesthetes, and subversive observers and how filmmakers stylistically foreground or reframe aspects of the vampire mythos. Throughout, we consider the vampire—a figure with knowledge and experience spanning supernatural swaths of time and place—as relevant to discourse within curatorial studies around nonlinear conceptions of history and the selection and connection of ideas and things. Readings cover topics including gender, race, queerness, consumption, taste, spectacle, spectatorship, and Marxist theory. Potential screenings include Daughters of Darkness (1971), The Hunger (1983), Near Dark (1987), The Addiction (1995), Blade II (2002), Let the Right One In (2008), Thirst (2009), Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014).
Learning Outcomes
- Interpret films through historical, social, political, and cultural considerations as well as independently through your own critical interests
- Gain an overview of topics within cultural criticism
- Explore vampire genre conventions and how individual filmmakers adopt, interpret, and subvert those conventions in service of social commentary
- Think critically and laterally by approaching vampire films as vehicles for exploring texts and ideas relevant within curatorial studies
Prerequisites
Prior coursework in curatorial studies, art history, literature, or SCT, and instructor's consent.
Please contact the faculty member : annethompson@bennington.edu