The Vampire Lectures
Since 1986, Rickels, a specialist in German literature and psychoanalytic theory (Aberrations of Mourning), has been giving vampire lectures at UC-Santa Barbara. He developed this "course load of auto-stimulation" to interest students in FreudAin particular, in his psychoanalytic treatment of mourning. The course was not an instant success, but 10 years later, it's standing room only. What appears here is, according to Rickels, "between reading/writing and the propagandistic talking of teaching." From embalming practices to pop culture, Rickels draws on every possible vampire metaphor to make his points. Claiming (dubiously) that the occult dates from the onset of technology, he calls vampire tales the "afterimage" of technological innovation. In his first "lecture," Rickels discusses Stoker, Rice, sexology and Vlad the Impaler to show that there are four distinct histories of vampirism. Many chapters focus on contemporary contributions such as "Buffy, Near Dark Salem Lot," while some dissect obscure works such as Guy de Maupassant's The Horla (a tale about a malevolent invisible force). Rickels even throws in shlock filmmaker Ed Wood. Yet he returns repeatedly to Stoker's Dracula to illustrate our psychodynamic reality, filled with death wishes, erotic substitution and symbolic meanings. The central problem is the analysis. Perhaps Rickels is trying to mimic teenage jargon, but his insights often come out as a convoluted blend of academic affectation and pop interpretation. For example, to explain why the university is the perfect place for his "Freudo-vampiric intervention," he describes it as "the heartbeat-later fleshing and flushing out of the emerging techno externalizations of what Freud would analyze as internal psychic mechanisms." While this book offers a sophisticated survey of vampire culture, most readers wouldn't want to be taking notes. (Sept.)Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.