This Pivot traces the rise of the so-called “vegetarian” vampire in popular culture and contemporary vampire fiction, while also exploring how the shift in the diet of (some) vampires, from human to animal or synthetic blood, responds to a growing ecological awareness that is rapidly reshaping our understanding of relations with others species. The book introduces the trope of the vegetarian vampire, as well as important critical contexts for its discussion: the Anthropocene, food studies, and the modern practice, politics and ideologies of vegetarianism. Drawing on references to recent historical contexts and developments in the genre more broadly, the book investigates the vegetarian vampire’s relationship to other more violent and monstrous forms of the vampire in popular twenty-first century horror cinema and television. Texts discussed include Interview with the Vampire, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight, The Vampire Diaries and True Blood. Reading the Vegetarian Vampire examines a new aspect of contemporary interest in considering vampire fiction.
Author(s): Sophie Dungan
Series: Palgrave Gothic
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 135
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction: Vampires and Vegetarians
Works Cited
Film and TV
Chapter 2: Rat’s Blood and Rice: Interview with the Proto-vegetarian Vampire
Refusing to Feed: The Twentieth-Century Tradition
The Proto-vegetarian Vampire
‘A vile unsupportable hunger’: Louis’s Human-Blood Diet
Works Cited
Film and TV
Chapter 3: Pig’s Blood and the Politics of Choice in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Magic, Microchips and Diet
Buffy, Species and Genre
Works Cited
TV
Chapter 4: Vegetarian Vampires: Twilight, Sustainability and Salvation
Going Green: Vegetarian Vampires and the Anthropocene
Works Cited
TV
Chapter 5: Banked Blood and Bunnies: Ethical Predation in The Vampire Diaries
The Early 1990s: L.J. Smith and the Sympathetic Tradition
‘Twilight for TV’: The Vampire Diaries and the 2000s
Works Cited
Film and TV
Chapter 6: Vegan Vampires: The Southern Vampire Mysteries and True Blood
Charlaine Harris’s The Southern Vampire Mysteries
Alan Ball’s True Blood
Works Cited
TV
Chapter 7: Conclusion: Vampires in the Anthropocene and Beyond
Works Cited
Film and TV
Index
