University to hold vampire conference

University to hold vampire conference
Sexy vampires will ascend from the pages of trashy novels to the realms of academia when the University of Hertfordshire holds a conference about them.




With many young people gripped by the recent Twilight vampire books and films and the True Blood television series, the university hopes the event will encourage students of all ages to study literature.

The conference, called Open Graves, Open Minds: Vampires And The Undead In Modern Culture, is thought to be the first such event in the UK.

It aims to put British vampire fiction ''back on the map'' after the American takeover of the genre.

Dr Sam George, a lecturer in English Literature at the university, said she was particularly interested in the new teenage vampires.

She said: ''In earlier fantasy narratives, such as CS Lewis's Narnia stories, sexuality is outlawed. The new vampire stories it seems take up where these narratives leave off and they represent this kind of sexual awakening.

''The new breed of vampires are far from monstrous, they are glamorous and sexy and have an emotional side.''

Rather than functioning solely as horror figures, she believes vampires act as a ''useful metaphor for teenagers' wider anxieties about their bodies and the first stirrings of desire''.

She added: ''Their attraction to vampire figures provides a safe way for them to acknowledge these desires.''

Most recently, these desires have focused on Robert Pattinson, the good-looking male star of the Twilight series' cinematic adaptation.

Pattinson plays a sexy vampire with whom the teenage heroine of Stephenie Meyer's novels falls in love.

Dr George, who will start teaching an MA course in vampire fiction at the university in September, will be joined at the conference by experts from around the world.

They will spend two days examining the various manifestations and cultural meanings of vampires.

Speakers at the conference, who include young adult fantasy fiction writer Marcus Sedgwick, will relate the undead in literature, art and other media to questions of gender, technology and social change.

Panel topics will include Undead Teens, Undead Romance, The Gay Undead and Undead TV.

Refreshments will be served out of coffins, a university spokeswoman said.

The conference takes place from April 16 to 17.