Giving and Getting Great Marks Across Time and the Curriculum: The Vampire as Concept in Establishing Standards of Excellence in Teacher Training

Large English or comparative literature university departments are able to offer a panoply of popular literature courses in, for example, Gothic literature, popular-culture media, or vampire fiction. Clearly, the figure of the blood-sucker traces a red thread through history in various appearances and it has remained firmly anchored in the folklore or popular culture of most societies but, until recently, far from the “serious” pursuits of academe. The field of cultural studies, however, enjoys a newfound acceptance and fortuitously, vampire lore and literature has been shoe-horned into acceptability as well, while creating a new interest for what Québec scholars call les sciences humaines (“the human sciences”). The cultural artefact became an object of serious study and can now impact and interweave with serious mainstream society. Smaller institutions or programmes, especially those whose main focus is education as opposed to literature or media, cannot afford to give us wide a selection of courses, and its members may find themselves opting away from popular, less canonical genres for the carefully selected literature courses they DO offer, and thereby favour classic works so as to ensure the gravitas that a well-rounded educator is supposed to embody. In the context of the Québecois curriculum in the teacher-training programme, the most recent changes to the 13 competencies that must be focused on clearly point to an educational philosophy which favours integration, diversity and inclusion. The literature and culture courses, therefore, must take these admonishments into account, integrating them into the subject matter of the courses. The figure best suited to tackle issues of ethics, politics and othering is certainly that of the vampire, whose versatility and adaptability can provide insight and potential for explicating complicated or tendentious matters.