Slayers and Their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead

by Bruce McClelland

The first book to explore the origins of the vampire slayer
 
“A fascinating comparison of the original vampire myths to their later literary transformations.”
—Adam Morton, author of On Evil
 
“From the Balkan Mountains to Beverly Hills, Bruce has mapped the vampire’s migration. There’s no better guide for the trek.”
—Jan L. Perkowski, Professor, Slavic Department, University of Virginia, and author of Vampires of the Slavs and The Darkling: A Treatise on Slavic Vampirism
 
“The vampire slayer is our protector, our hero, our Buffy. But how much do we really know about him—or her? Very little, it turns out, and Bruce McClelland shows us why: because the vampire slayer is an unsettling figure, almost as disturbing as the evil she is set to destroy. Prepare to be frightened . . . and enlightened.”
—Corey Robin, author of Fear: The History of a Political Idea
 
“What is unique about this book is that it is the first of its kind to focus on the vampire hunter, rather than the vampire. As such, it makes a significant contribution to the field. This book will appeal to scholars and researchers of folklore, as well as anyone interested in the literature and popular culture of the vampire.”
—Elizabeth Miller, author of Dracula and A Dracula Handbook
 
“Shades of Van Helsing! Vampirologist extraordinaire Bruce McClelland has managed that rarest of feats: developing a radically new and thoroughly enlightening perspective on a topic of eternal fascination. Ranging from the icons of popular culture to previously overlooked details of Balkan and Slavic history and folk practice, he has rethought the borders of life and death, good and evil, saint and sinner, vampires and their slayers. Excellent scholarship, and a story that never flags.”
—Bruce Lincoln, Caroline E. Haskell Professor of History of Religions, University of Chicago, and author of Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship, Authority: Construction and Corrosion, and Death, War, and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology and Practice

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Vampires, Death, Research, Historical

280 pages, Paperback

First published July 28, 2006

Reviews

[R. J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is definitely a scholarly work rather than popular reading. It reads rather like someone's doctoral thesis. It's peppered with words like recrudescence, anti-imaginal rationalism, and obscuration. And that was just in the preface. Later on you get sentences like this doozy on pg 122:

"Ginzberg is tentatively of the opinion that the Bulgarian folklore may "add a relevant nuance to the European quasi-shamanistic layer" but a great deal of work remains to establish the pathways of contact and syncretism that would also explain the substantial differences between the Western European witch seers and the Eastern European vampire hunters (if such a broad geographic and cultural boundary may be temporarily drawn).

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If you can wade through the early chapters on the folklore the last couple chapters on the vampire slayer in (relatively) contemporary media is rather interesting, if brief. It focuses on Dracula, Kolchak the Nightstalker, The X-Files, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

[Lenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating

Dense and academic but well researched and argued. Would have like some analysis on Anne Rice who is definitely more important to current vampire culture than Kolchak, X Files and Buffy.

[Avital]

GR 830 V3 M23 2006

[Anıl Karzek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Orijinal dilinden okunmasını tavsiye ederim. Çevirisi yüzünden ve yazım hatalarından dolayı çok zor okudum. Kitap zaten ağır, akademik bir yayın.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a superb exploration of, not just the literary vampire/slayer dynamic, but the etymological history of vampires and vampire myths in the Eastern European setting that spawned them. While it could possibly read as dry, tracing the history and usage of the word "vampir" reveals the function of re-animated corpses as scapegoats within agrarian societies. McClelland also traces the transformation of the original ideas of vampires and vampirism into the Western European literary vampire we know today.

The history/etymology of slayers follows the same path, first looking at the original cultural origins and significance of people designated by a community to see/slay vampires, then follows the concept of eradicating vampires into Enlightenment Western Europe. It then looks at more modern cultural representations of slayers such as Van Helsing from Dracula, Kolchak the Night Stalker, Mulder and Scully, and (of course) Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

All in all, this book is an excellent overview of the origins of the vampire myths, their transformation into the cultural mythos we know today, and the function of "slayers" within those myths. As both a historical work and a cultural analysis this work is top-notch for getting a handle of vampire history and origin, as it addresses pre-Christian history and local custom, and doesn't treat everything pre-18th century (i.e. before the rise of the literary vampire) as vague and unknowable, as if vampires sprang up during the Enlightenment without any previous existence.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is a non-fiction look at the historical development (through literature, history, and anthropology) of vampire slayers. Of course, this came about because of my general interest in Buffy, but in the end the book was a quick and interesting non-fiction read about literary and historical warriors against the undead.

Verdict: B+

[Meagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great info on beginnings of vampires and their slayers. The author was a little bit of a so smart stick in the butt type. I think he could have presented the info in a funner way. He seemed to dislike what his topic was about. Why write a book and not like your topic? Why waste the time?

[Rhonda]

Detailed research, but repetitive. The penultimate chapter is the 19th century, the final, the 20th. Those lacked the focus of the earlier ones. All in all, a book to read out of obligation to keep up in the field.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting academic study of the true origins of vampire myths (i.e., before the Victorian literary wave).