Reading Vampire Gothic Through Blood examines the manifestations of blood and vampires in various texts and contexts. It seeks to connect, through blood, fictional to real-life vampires to trace similarities, differences and discontinuities. These movements will be seen to parallel changing notions about embodiment and identity in culture.

This fascinating study explores the multifarious erotic themes associated with the magic lantern shows, which proved the dominant visual medium of the West for 350 years, and analyses how the shows influenced the portrayals of sexuality in major works of Gothic fiction. It offers vivid, new readings of works as varied as Charlotte Brönte's Villette and Bram Stoker's Dracula, and even uses clues suggested by magic lantern references to discover the meaning of the amorous entanglement described in the last extant stanzas of Byron's Don Juan. The first book-length consideration of the erotic associations connected with lantern shows, Jones reinstates the lanterns' importance for past generations in their visualization and expression of diverse sexualities and argues that an understanding of these influences serves fundamentally to change our reading of Gothic literature.

Why do the English have ghost stories at Christmas? Why does US television have special Halloween episodes? Is this all down to Dickens, or is it a hangover of an ancient, pagan past? Why does it survive? Haunted Seasons explores these and related questions, examining the history and meaning of seasonal horror. It reaches back through archaeological evidence of ancient beliefs, through Shakespeare, and Victorian ghost stories, and the works of M.R.James, and onwards to radio and television. The broader genre of supernatural television is considered in relation to the irruptions of abnormality into the normal, along with the significance of time and the seasons in these narratives and their telling. Particular focus is placed on the BBC Ghost Story for Christmas strand and the Halloween episodes of The Simpsons to help us interpret the continued use of these seasonal horror stories and their place in society, from fireside to television.

This unique study explores the vampire as host and guest, captor and hostage: a perfect lover and force of seductive predation. From Dracula and Carmilla to True Blood and The Originals, the figure of the vampire embodies taboos and desires about hospitality, rape and consent. The first section welcomes the reader into ominous spaces of home, examining the vampire through concepts of hospitality and power, the metaphor of threshold, and the blurred boundaries between visitation, invasion and confinement. Section two reflects upon the historical development of vampire narratives and the monster as oppressed, alienated Other. Section three discusses cultural anxieties of youth, (im)maturity, childhood agency, abuse and the age of consent. The final section addresses vampire as intimate partner, mapping boundaries between invitation, passion and coercion. With its fresh insight into vampire genre, this book will appeal to academics, students and general public alike.

1.Introduction.- 2.Angela Living in Gothic Times.- 3.Margaret Atwood and Canadian Women's Spite, Lies, Split Selves and Self Deception.- 4.Cultural Toni Morrison and Tananarive Due.- 5.Postcolonial and Cultural Haunting Letting the 'Right' Ones In.- 6.Testing the Fabric of Bluebeard's Postcolonial Reconfigurations, Demythologizing, Re-Mythologizing and Shape-shifting.- 7.Vampire Bites.- 8.Vampire Kisses.- 9.Ghostings and Splintering the Fabric of Domestic Gothic with Horror Houses, Stately Homes, Ghosts Behind Walls, Playroom Deaths, Women in Black, Little Strangers.- 10.Reviving, Revisiting and Mainstreaming Gothic

After 9/11, the world felt the “shock and awe” of the War on Terror. But that war also exploded inside novels, films, comics, and gaming. Danel Olson investigates why the paranormal, ghostly, and conspiratorial entered such media between 2002-2022, and how this Gothic presence connects to the most recent theories on PTSD. Set in New York/Gotham, Afghanistan, Iraq, and CIA black sites, the traumatic and weird works interrogated here ask how killing affects the killers. The protagonists probed are artillery, infantry, and armored-cavalry soldiers; military intelligence; the Air Force; counter-terrorism officers of the NYPD, NCIS, FBI, and CIA; and even the ultimate crime-fighting vigilante, Batman.