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Vampires Vamps and Va Va Voom: Recordings and Abstracts

Conference Opening

Rebecca-Anne Do Rozario opens the conference, talking about the background and themes to be discussed.

He is a Monster: Masculinity, Animalism and the Gendering of Power in Paranormal Romance

Photo: Lenise Prater

In my paper I contend that the genre of paranormal romance can provide new and more equitable narrations of sex and gender, but that this is rarely the case. The ‘self-evident’ (and self-perpetuating) construction of men as stronger than women justifies problematic power relations in most romance novels. Indeed, many feminist scholars such as Winifred Woodhull and Sharon Marcus have noted that the normalisation of sexual and domestic violence is due, in part, to the attribution of power to men and powerlessness to women. In paranormal romance, where vampires, werewolves, shape shifters and witches abound, common-sense understandings of men’s and women’s bodies can be undermined. Unfortunately, paranormal romance authors often create myths or pairings where the heroes are more monstrous and powerful than the heroines. Women in these novels are not correspondingly monstrous or animalistic; they are, for example, far more likely to be virgins and less likely to attack the hero. In order to articulate my arguments, I will examine two paranormal romance series in depth. The Immortals After Dark series by Kresley Cole exemplifies the problems associated with the paranormal romance genre. I will contrast this with the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J.R. Ward that provides a framework in which men are at least held responsible for their misuse of power and demonstrates how paranormal romance can undermine anti-feminist constructions of gender and sexuality.

Lenise Prater BA (Hons) is currently writing her PhD in literature on the torture memoirs produced in the ‘war on terror’. Her honours project was a feminist account of the romance ‘subgenre’ of ‘romantic suspense’. She also spoke at the After Harry symposium about the construction of romance in the Harry Potter series.

Having it both ways: the queering of heteronormative romance

Photo: Laura Jane Maher

The simultaneous desire for and repugnance with Otherness serves to inform its status as erotic. Within the realm of supernatural fictions, Vampires encapsulate this heightened sexualisation by traversing the dangerous in-betweens of twilight and dawn, the undead and the demonic-human. The Vampire character provides a human reader with an identifiable and containable image of desire corporealised. However in doing so these characters actively defy the conventions of heteronormativity by flouting the social constructs relating to gender as power and role descriptive.

In this paper I will address the means by which vampire romances catering to a young adult readership interrogate the morality of queered sexuality and contrast this with adult romances which provide a queered space for erotic motif to develop without the need for ethical interrogation of sexuality within the narrative.

Laura-Jane Maher is an Honours student with the School of English, Communication and Performance Studies at Monash University, having graduated from a combined bachelors’ degree in Law and Performing Arts in 2006. Her current research focuses on the story telling process within the legal system, both the stories told within the legal system and the means by which narrative tradition underwrites legal structure. She has previously presented “Passionate Trousers: An exploration of erotic motif and sexual pedagogy in the Harry Potter novels” (2007) and is beginning to see a theme here…

Fantasising Masculinity in Buffyverse Slash Fiction: Sexuality, Violence, and the Vampire.

The phenomenon of homoerotic fiction known as 'slash' is a form of fan-generated erotic literature which centres on the relationship between two or more same sex characters appropriated from the realm of popular television. This paper concentrates specifically on the slash fictions derived from Joss Whedon's cult television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel. In particular, it explores the ways in which the authors of "Buffyverse" slash discursively conceptualise masculinity, male desire, and sexuality. My chief concern here is to examine how masculinity is constructed and constituted at a textual level through the trope of the vampiric. In doing so, I address the complex issues surrounding the ways in which writers of slash convey the figure of the vampire through the lenses of romance, sexual violence, and homosocial bonding in the representation of
the television series two vampire protagonists, Angel and Spike.

Virginia Keft-Kennedy holds a PhD from the University of Wollongong, NSW Australia. Her research focuses on the representation of gender and sexuality in popular culture with a particular emphasis on the dancing body. Virginia recently published her article “‘How does she do that?’ Belly Dancing and the Horror of a Flexible Woman” in Women’s Studies (Vol 34, No.3-4, 2005: 279-300). Her other research interests include the intersections between gender and race in literature, theories of the grotesque, queer theory and sexuality studies, popular culture and television studies, and vampire studies.

Conformity through transgression: An examination of the proliferation of vampires within online cultures

Photo: Kirsten Stevens

From its long forgotten origins in the folklore of Eastern Europe, the Vampire has been held as something to be feared, something existing beyond the limits of the social system. A monster, hiding in the dark, it disturbs and transgresses the boundaries of social order, existing, as Veronica Hollinger suggests, as “the monster that used to be human… the undead that used to be alive; it is the monster that looks like us.”(1997: 201) Breaking the boundaries which so define western conceptions of the self and the body, notions of the human and of inevitable mortality; the vampire is a creature who in its very nature exits at the limit. In his book Neo-Baroque, Omar Calabrese investigates further those aspects which disturb and destroy the boundaries of a social system, in particular those resulting in eccentricity and excess. Associated with those values that Calabrese finds most de-stabilising, concepts of sex, violence and the monster, the Vampire is permanently located at and beyond the limit of the socially acceptable.

In light of this, it is then interesting that the vampire has more recently been integrated into the very heart of social ritual and community. This phenomenon has most visibly taken place in the setting of online communities, and most recently in the case of the Facebook online network. This paper addresses how members of online communities utilise this transgressive creature to entrench themselves within a social network and the irony implicit in this. It will take as a case study the Facebook online community and its Vampire and Slayer applications, where members are encouraged to fulfil the common folkloric tale of the Vampire reeking havoc on their friends and in the neighbourhoods they inhabited in life. I will also investigate how the very nature of the online identity can be seen to reflect notions of the Vampire, in particular theories of shape-shifting, gender play and the performance of sexuality.

Kirsten Stevens is a first year PhD student at Monash University, studying in the Department of Film and Television studies. She is currently researching the Public exhibition of Alternative cinema within the recent Australian context, following completing her Honours Thesis on Apocalyptic themes and imagery within contemporary culture.

Playing Vampire Cool: The Strange Postmodern Romances of Michael Almereyda’s Nadja (1994) and Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction (1995)

Since at least the 1950s, popular culture has deployed various figures, types and tropes of the supernatural or fantastique – aliens, zombies, ghosts, vampires, body-snatchers, etc – as metaphors for common human and political problems: alienation, non-communication, social exclusion, and so on. From the 1980s, and the popular spread of postmodern cultural sensibilities, this metaphoric work on the supernatural (whether conscious or unconscious, latent or manifest) takes a highly ‘second degree’, self-conscious, and frequently comic (or camp), turn. Nadja and The Addiction, two important, ingeniously stylised films of the mid ‘90s by key figures of American independent cinema, re-introduce a definite seriousness into this cultural discussion. Vampiric romance comes to mean many things in these films: on the one hand, for Almereyda, a metaphor for ‘Generation X’ lifestyles and interpersonal relationships; for Ferrara, a vehicle to channel the unspeakable horrors of the 20th century. I want to look at the ambience of ‘vampire cool’ in these grandly self-conscious but deadly earnest movies, and in particular at how this is ‘played’ or performed by the actors, including Christopher Walken, Elina Lowensöhn and Lili Taylor. The talk will be illustrated by several film clips.

Dr. Adrian Martin is Senior Research Fellow in Film and Television Studies, Monash University. He is the author of Phantasms (Penguin 1994), Once Upon a Time in America (British Film Institute 1997), The Mad Max Movies (Currency 2003), Raúl Ruiz: sublimes obsesiones (Altamira 2004) and ¿Que es el cine moderno? (Uqbar 2008), and Co-Editor of Movie Mutations (BFI 2003) and the on-line film journal Rouge (www.rouge.com.au).

Fangs and Phalluses: The Vampire as Sexual Deviant

Photo: Evie Kendal

Literary and film representations of the vampire have often historically contained some reference to sexualities and sexual practices not condoned by the society from which the text arose. From Bram Stoker’s seductive Dracula, to Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s sado-masochist, Spike, the raw sexual power of the vampire is continually associated with some level of sexual deviancy. Over the generations the nature of this unconventional sexuality has changed in vampire literature, incorporating female sexuality, lustful seduction and fornication, adultery and homosexuality (particularly lesbianism). In the Victorian Era female sexuality was feared, and its association with vampire mythology related to the blood loss observed in women following first intercourse and menstruation. That female sexuality was considered deviant is a reflection on the attitudes towards women at this time, which also focused on the responsibility of women to resist seduction and ‘de-flowering’, such as that described between the Count and Lucy in Dracula (1897). More recently studies have concentrated on the homo-erotic element of vampire romance, with particular focus on lesbianism. Diana Fuss calls attention to the fact that the “classic pose of sexual ecstasy for the woman”, resembles the pose assumed by women in vampire literature when they succumb to the thrall of the vampire – head tilted back, neck extended and exposed, a ‘cultural eroticisation’ of woman’s “vulnerability and passivity” (Fuss, 1992). It is also interesting to compare the role of gender in vampiric myths, particularly those related to how one can be turned into a vampire. In many instances the ‘siring’ process is highly erotic, forming a lasting connection between the vampire and its victim. Some vampire lore dictates that only a vampire of the opposite sex can turn a human, while others assert that only virgins can be sired, both exposing different attitudes towards homosexuality and fornication. This presentation will explore the role of vampire literature in identifying social and cultural trends, distinguishing societal boundaries between sexual appropriateness and deviancy over time.

Evie Kendal is an undergraduate studying a Bachelor of Biomedical Science, specializing in neuroscience and blood pathology, and a Bachelor of Arts, in Latin, Philosophy and Literature. She recently presented at the 'Demanding the Impossible: Utopia, Dystopia and Science fiction' conference in 2007 on the subject of "How the author is alive and kicking in utopian social-science-fiction" and has published in poetry anthologies including 'Breaking the Dawn' (1997) and 'Songs of Honour' (2006). Her research interests include feminist literature, children's literature and science fiction.

A Discussion of Horror Films with Philippe Met

Adrian Martin chairs a talk and discussion with Philippe Met about horror film. Group discussion not included in this recording, just the talk.

Dracula (1979) as Paranormal Romance

John Badham's Dracula (1979) has been described as a very romantic interpretation of the Bram Stoker's story, even the first Romantic interpretation of Dracula on screen. Frank Langella, who plays the eponymous hero, maintained that the defining feature of his Dracula was his refusal to be filmed biting necks and drinking blood. He wouldn't wear fangs, tattered funereal garb, pale face makeup, or contact lenses that changed the appearance of his eyes: he wanted to appear on screen as the impeccably-dressed lover of his victims, not their haggard destroyer. But there is more to a romantic narrative, especially a Paranormal Romance, than an impeccable smile and a clear shirt-front; and though the studio, director and writer of this film were sympathetic to Langella's "vision", each had different ideas about how to realize it on film.

This paper will examine the main romance elements of Badham's Dracula, comparing them to typical elements in Paranormal Romance fiction, to assess whether the film succeeds a romance narrative or a horror story with a romantic sub-plot.

Patrick Spedding is the author of A Bibliography of Eliza Haywood (2004) and the editor of Script & Print. He is an ARC-funded Research Fellow in the Daprtment of English at Monash University. His research project is an examination of the production and distribution of erotica in England in the eighteenth-century.

“I think the thrall has gone out of our relationship”: Buffy and Dracula - a parodic adventure in romance

Photo: Sian Mitchell

The first episode of season 5 Buffy the Vampire Slayer the television series sees Buffy come up against arguably the most famous vampire in the literary and cultural world, Dracula. The relationship formed between the ‘The Chosen One’ and ‘Prince of Darkness’ is an exercise in parody, a meeting between modern literature and post-modern television, a comment on the past and present through the romance and rejection of these two characters. Using the definition of romance as the ‘lure of the quest’ (Sorenson, 2004) this paper analyses the relationship between Buffy and Dracula as a rewriting of the modern romance associated with the literary version of the vampire through the post-modern lens of television and parody. Through the analysis of key scenes, I will argue that this episode turns Bram Stoker’s story on its head, undermining the seduction and preternatural masculinity that Dracula offers (to all the Scooby Gang, not just Buffy!), through the sardonic wit that has become associated with Buffy the series. Their relationship not only leads Buffy to question her own existence as a slayer (a criticism repeatedly aimed at this particular episode), but also subverts, and at times confuses, gender roles, a convention commonly linked with the post-modern romance. More broadly, associated erotic relationships within the episode, such as that between Dracula and Xander, will also be approached to further elucidate the post-modern nature of this episode with regard to romance.

Sian Mitchell is a PhD candidate in Film and Television Studies at Monash University. Her thesis is entitled “Human Nature: Psychoanalysis, Identity, and Cinema in the films of Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry.”

Carmilla: corporeal integrity and reviving romantic bodies

Photo: Odette Kelada

This paper discusses the iconic lesbian vampire story of Carmilla, written in 1872 and explores how a positive reading of the text as paranormal romance may render it both an empowering and subversive queer romance narrative. While vampire mythology may be portrayed as horror, there is often a strong romantic narrative running in tandem with the terror. In classic gothic literature, the romance is often struck moreover between the romantic heroine and the 'monster'. This close positioning of the horror narrative and the romance narrative in the myth creates a provocative tension where the erotic potential of abject love and demonic seduction, gives voice to a generative and liberating space of desire and resistance. While in Carmilla, such potential may ultimately be contained in traditional frameworks, the reading of Carmilla as a ‘love story’, indicates the potency of reviving the romantic in subjugated bodies and transgressive sexualities.

Odette Kelada has completed a PhD from Charles Sturt University on Australian women writers. She is currently working at Monash University as a Research Associate for Prof. Rachel Fensham on a three-year ARC Discovery grant project on ‘Transnational and cross-cultural choreographies’. She also teaches in various literature subjects at Monash and has taught and guest lectured in politics at Melbourne University. Her areas of interest include feminism, post-colonial theory, literature, critical whiteness studies and cultural history.

Possessing and Consuming Desire: Vampire as Metaphor

Traditionally a taboo topic, sexuality is surrounded with euphemisms. Mainstream romance novels are rife with metaphorical references to the sexual act which may act as a powerful conduit of ideological impact, structuring reality in certain ways and making it difficult to view the world in other ways (Fairclough, 1992: 195, 208). For example, George Lakoff (1987: 409-412) notes that metaphorical categories of lust - lust is a game, lust is hunger, a lustful person is an animal - overlap with those of anger, leading him to suggest that “sex and violence may be linked in the mind via these metaphors” (p. 412). In a similar manner, vampirism and sexuality evoke common metaphors: consumption, possession, compulsion and so on. Comparing vampire literature with more mainstream romantic fiction, I will argue that the two genres both use similar metaphorical constructions of sexuality, most notably ‘sex as possession’ and ‘sex as joining’. Indeed, the use of the paranormal as a narrative device may itself be viewed as a metaphor for human desire. The impact of such linguistic structuring is discussed with reference to dominance/submission, activity/reactivity, and female agency, and the potential effect on broader constructions of sexuality is broached.

Melanie Burns (BLitt (Hons), BBNSc) is a PhD candidate in the Linguistics program at Monash University. Her research interests include taboo, offensive language and swearing, gender and language, discourse analysis, the psychology of language, and the language of the media. Her doctoral research centres on the discursive construction of sexuality in media texts.

Consuming Passions: Vampires, Hunger and Sexuality

The figure of the praying mantis, the monstrously sexual female who consumes her male mate at the height of the mating ritual, has underpinned constructions of female sexuality for centuries. Related to this has been a male fear of female consumption that implicitly links the act of eating to the sexually devouring woman. Susan Bordo demonstrates how the resultant repression and ideological control of female hunger promotes disordered a body image and leads to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia. The vampiric drinking of blood, particularly by the female, has traditionally been rendered highly sexual, and although her victim is not necessarily male, the female vampire’s eating is a form of literal, sexualised consumption, reproducing the figure of the hungering, desiring woman as sexually voracious man-eater.

I will also consider the representations of female hunger and sexuality in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series, Keri Arthur’s “Riley Jensen” novels and Gerry Bartlett’s Real Vampires series, and demonstrate that Buffy and Riley Jensen perpetuate anxieties about female desire, and undermine the empowering narratives they offer. Arthur’s series also portrays a female sexuality which is always consenting to sex and thus contributes to the rape myths which prevent victims from obtaining convictions in court.
By contrast, Bartlett’s series grapples body image issues head-on and in fact undermines some of the anxieties about weight which lead to eating disorders and avoids portraying a monstrous female sexuality. Thus it is Bartlett’s heroine, the insecure vampire who overcomes her fears to save the day who ultimately offers the most positive narrative.

Deb Watson is working on her PhD on football culture and sexual assault at Monash University. She recently published in The Australian Feminist Law Journal and presented a paper on the male footballer’s body at Cardiff University.

The Mother is a Vamp: explorations into the Mommy-lit faction of Paranormal Romance

What do you get if you cross a working-class, forty-something-year-old single mother with a blood-sucking vampire? A whole lot, in fact. The ‘Mommy-lit’ hybrid of Vampire Romance fiction provides a novel platform for discussions of female subjectivity, constructions of motherhood and paranormal twists on the notion of the ‘traditional family’. This paper engages predominately with Michele Bardsley’s Broken Heart series as an inlet into social and psychoanalytic critique of this emerging trend in contemporary romance fiction. It is observed that Vampire Mommy-lit functions as a discourse of patriarchal resistance by embracing the mother-daughter plot as essential female experience, thereby relegating the female’s dependence on males and children to the periphery. The gothic fantasy of ‘the Mother as Vampire’ serves as an inlet back to preoedipal experience, providing a subversion of existing mother-archetypes and new representations of mothering.

Michelle De Stefani is a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) graduate in the Department of English and is currently completing a Bachelor of Laws at Monash University. Her research interests include Children’s literature and childhood studies, Victorian Literature, popular and visual culture.

Undead Romance Writers

This paper examines the embedding of vampire romance writers in Tanya Huff’s ‘blood noun’1 and Katie McAlister’s Dark Ones series. The use of a vampire as a first person narrator in Anne Rice’s work helped establish a new trend of construction of the sympathetic vampire, but whether as first person narrators or characters in someone else’s first person narration, today’s vampire romance writer serves not to create a sense of empathy with the reader by ostensibly writing the book in their hands, but to actually construct the reader as a particular consumer of vampire romance. This reader, engaged in negotiating believability or suspension of disbelief necessary to their position, remains conscious of the female author of the novel, but is also lead down the garden path by the potential metafictional, male vampire romance writer. The paper will discuss the gendered implications of the reader’s position and the metafictional inflections inherent in constructing undead romance writers.

Dr. Rebecca-Anne C. Do Rozario lectures in children’s and fantasy literature at Monash University. She has published in journals such as Women’s Studies in Communication, theatre journal and Children’s Literature Studies.

1 The informal title for the series used by the publishers.

Panel Discussion

An open discussion, with Narelle Harris, author of vampire novel set in Melbourne, The Opposite of Life; Laura Jane Maher; and Odette Kelada.

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