Der Vampir: Ein europäischer Mythos des kulturellen Transfers

More than 200 years since the publication of John Polidori’s The Vampyre. A Tale (1819), the vampire is still a central figure in several European literatures and is doubly relevant to issues of cultural transfer. As a liminal figure, he connotes invasion and is thus closely associated with defensive strategies against the (alien) other; moreover, as an ambivalent character, the vampire signifies fascination and horror and stands for cultural contact and demarcation in equal measure. This volume addresses the vampire as a hybrid figure between animal and human, animate/inanimate, the sacred and the secular, but also as a figure standing between genres and media, as well as between cultures, social classes, genders, and geographical areas.