V&O: The Vampire in Storytelling, a Bite-Sized History

Victoria teaches Julia all about the origins, tropes, and metaphors of vampire lore. They discuss the origins of vampire stories in Slavic folklore, the Great Vampire Epidemic of the 18th century, the blood-sucking breakup novel Lord Byron’s “travel companion” wrote about him, and lament the loss of a key source for Victoria’s vampire-as-justice analysis that she lost when she closed all her tabs.

(And don’t forget to check out the bonus content where Victoria shares all the thoughts on Twilight that didn’t make it into the episode!)

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Mentioned in this episode:

• Dracula by Bram Stoker

• What We Do In the Shadows (tv show)

• What We Do In the Shadows (film)

• Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

• Interview With the Vampire (tv show)

• Slayers and Their Vampires by Bruce McClelland

• “Mothers, Daughters, and Vampires: The Female Sexual Dilemma in Eighteenth-Century Vampire Poetry” by Ashley M. Quinn

• “Der Vampir” by Heinrich August Ossenfelder

• “The Bride of Corinth” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• The Vampyre by John Polidori

• Two Species of Irish Vampire (1831)

• Olivia Rodrigo’s song “Vampire”

• 118 Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu — The One with the Lesbian Vampire 

• 011 Dracula by Bram Stoker (archive) 

• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame Smith

• Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice