Theology and Vampires

Madeline Potter is Early Career Teaching and Research Fellow in the Long 19th Century (Romanticism to Victorianism) at University of Edinburgh.

• Introduction, Madeline PotterChapter 1: Contesting Materialism in Nineteenth-Century Vampire Fiction, Alison MilbankChapter 2: ‘Bless Me Lord, For I am Going to Sin:’ Vampire Priests, the Role of Blood, Religion and Gothic Heresy, Jonathan GreenawayChapter 3: Indian Vampires: Religion, Esotericism, Responses in English and Bengali Literature, Shaona BarikChapter 4: What We [Actually] Do in the Shadows: Vampires in Orthodox Christianity through the Lens of Kostova’s The Historian, David K. GoodinChapter 5: Japanese Vampires for Christ: Vampire Media as Religious Invasion Narrative in Japan, Justin MullisChapter 6: In the Beginning, God Created Lilith: Vampiric Ontology, Gender and Lilith in True Blood and She Never Died, Mary GoingChapter 7: The Inoperative Bite: Aoi Tori, Vampire Narratives, and the Absence of Evil, Leo ChuChapter 8: “We are on a Mission from God.” – Alucard, Theology, Monsters, and Monstrosity in Hellsing Ultimate (2006-2012), Marthe-Siobhán HeckeChapter 9: Vampire Priests and “Cult Messiahs” in Stephen King’s ’Salem’s Lot, Curtis RunstedlerChapter 10: Bloody Scriptures: The Vampire’s Place within the Bible of the Folk Tradition, Kari SawdenChapter 11: Horizontal Vampirism, Vertical Theology: Juxtaposing Jean Rollin’s Lips of Blood with Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction, Gavin F. HurleyChapter 12: Blade and the Spiritual Problem of Evil, Peter Morgan and Terance Espinoza

Theology and Vampires provides an historically and geographically comprehensive account of the theological journey undertaken by the vampire from the nineteenth century to the present day. From Britain to India and Japan, these essays bear witness to the complex manifestation of vampirism in a variety of national and theological contexts. This volume charts the rich theological development of the undead vampire in novels, films, and manga. This is an important book for any scholar working on the history of the vampire across media forms.