Teaching Social Justice Through Vampire Narratives

This chapter describes the goals, instructional methods, and activities of a freshman Honors seminar entitled “The Vampire in Literature, Film, and Culture,” taught at the University of Memphis. By using the Western vampire as an ideological mirror and examining a diversity of vampire narratives from different historical and cultural contexts, Gal highlights the potential for such narratives to foster constructive dialog about diversity, equity, and power. She argues that exposing students to the complex and nuanced ways in which gender, race, class, and sexuality intersect in these texts enables them to confront and challenge the deep-seated societal prejudices that have contributed to the marginalization of certain groups and hindered the realization of social justice goals.