A bibliographical haunting

Readers sometimes point me to articles or web sites, but unfortunately it often takes me some time to write about it here. So, Roberto Labanti recently mentioned a bibliography of books and papers on vampirism that is now available online. The bibliography, Wissenschaftliche Vampir-Literatur: Eine bibliographische Heimsuchung by Gerd H. Hövelmann, was originally published in a journal called Anomalistik in 2007, so obviously it is not up to date, still it is relatively comprenhensive, so I am sure that most will find something useful.

I find the bibliograhpy of articles and papers the most interesting and useful, although some entries in my opinion are placed under a wrong category. Consequently, even if you are not particularly interested in one or more of the categories, I would suggest that you take a look anyway.

There are, as one might expect, a number of curiosities, like e.g. a paper on a Norwegian medical experiment, Does garlic protect against vampires? An experimental study with this abstract:

'Vampires are feared everywhere, but the Balkan region has been especially haunted. Garlic has been regarded as an effective prophylactic against vampires. We wanted to explore this alleged effect experimentally. Owing to the lack of vampires, we used leeches instead. In strictly standardized research surroundings, the leeches were to attach themselves to either a hand smeared with garlic or to a clean hand. The garlic-smeared hand was preferred in two out of three cases (95% confidence interval 50.4% to 80.4%). When they preferred the garlic the leeches used only 14.9 seconds to attach themselves, compared with 44.9 seconds when going to the non-garlic hand (p < 0.05). The traditional belief that garlic has prophylactic properties is probably wrong. The reverse may in fact be true. This study indicates that garlic possibly attracts vampires. Therefore to avoid a Balkan-like development in Norway, restrictions on the use of garlic should be considered.'

As for Anomalistik, according to the web site, 'the Gesellschaft für Anomalistik (Society for Anomalistics) is recognised as a charitable organisation for the advancement of science by the German state. Its roughly 130 members, with professional backgrounds in the natural and social sciences as well as in the humanities, advocate a critical but open-minded approach to controversial scientific claims and exceptional human experiences.

Based on multidisciplinary empirical, conceptual and historical research, the Society seeks to promote and cultivate an informed and respectful dialogue between proponents and opponents of controversial scientific claims and seemingly incompatible epistemic positions. The Society's only corporate view is a careful scepticism – meaning 'investigation' rather than 'dogmatic denial' in the original Greek – regarding unconventional claims and scientific orthodoxy alike.'

Dracula bibliography

This is mostly about the fictional Dracula, but I am sure some will find this Canadian three part bibliography useful. It is particularly strong on literature in English and French on Stoker and his novel and its adaptations. Part three is concerned with the cinematic Dracula.

Internet resources

In a recent comment to one of my posts, Edward asks :

'Hello Niels,

do you remember the names of the books you referenced? Also, do you know where I could order them on line? I do read German therefore that would be no problem.

Here in the US we have difficulties finding decent European material for vampyre research because everything is oriented toward entertainment and serious research is relatively limited. I would appreciate if you could provide me with some websites or resources to find European texts.'

Edward, if you go through the contents of this blog you will find a number of links to resources and material that will be useful. However, I think it's time to make some sort of compilation of these resources, so although not an exhaustive list, here you will find links to a number of books, videos, audio files, web sites and more that is available online.

There are a few other web sites dedicated to the subject of vampires that do contain material of interest, see e.g. Dunkle Kulturgeschichte and Shroudeater. A relatively recent addition is the blog Diary of an Amateur Vampirologist.

The German Wikipedia contains some useful entries, including links to a collection of source material. This is actually a really good place to start, so I will refrain from listing these texts here. Other sources can be found at various library resources like the French Gallica, which includes Calmet's book on revenants and vampires. Zedler's Universal-Lexicon is a favourite, see e.g. the entry about Vampyren oder Blutsauger.

The Kakanien Revisited web site contains a comprehensive bibliography: Forschungsliteratur: Vampirismus. Kommentierte interdisziplinäre Auswahlbibliografie, and a number of papers (Sexualität Macht Tod: Prolegomena zu einer Literaturgeschichte des Vampirismus by Clemens Ruthner, Der Vampir, ein Fremder? Ethnische Minderheiten im Vampirglauben Südosteuropas by Peter Mario Kreuter, "Trag mich nach Südamerika". Schauplätze der osteuropäischen Vampirliteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts und ihre Konnotationen by Christoph Augustynowicz, and Süd/Osteuropäer als Vampire: Draculas Karriere vom blutrünstigen Tyrannen zum mythischen Blutsauger. Prolegomena zu einer Literaturgeschichte des Vampirismus II by Clemens Ruthner).

The Historicum web pages on the witch hunt also contain some useful resources, including a paper by Sabine Seidel on Hexen(vorstellungen) und Magie in Südosteuropa.

A couple of other papers available online that are worth reading are Jutta Nowosadtko's Der „Vampyrus Serviensis“ und sein Habitat: Impressionen von der österreichischen Militärgrenze and Constantin Rauer's Von der Aufklärung des Vampirismus zum Vampirismus der Aufklärung: Eine West-Östliche Debatte zwischen Einst und Heute.

I have also referred to some videos and audio files where a few people talk about vampires, including the above mentioned Jutta Nowosadtko on Vampire! Ein südosteuropäischer Beitrag zur internationalen Kulturgeschichte, the German historian Peter Mario Kreuter and Christian Reiter from the University of Vienna.

Most of the important books in German can be a bit hard to find, but you should be able to easily find a copy of Dieter Sturm and Klaus Völker's anthology Von denen Vampiren oder Menschensaugern on German Amazon or Ebay at a reasonable price.

Vampire bibliographies

Elsewhere on this blog there has been a reference to a list of vampire books compiled by Anthony Hogg on Amazon: The Complete Vampirologist's Library. I have myself a couple of times considered compiling an annotated list of books, but the problem is that some books will be in German, some in English, and maybe a couple of books will be in other languages, and that might make it hard to compile an Amazon list of all the books. However, the most comprehensive and useful bibliography online is probably Clemens Ruthner's Forschungslitteratur: Vampirismus - Kommentierte interdisziplinäre Auswahlbibliografie, i.e. research litterature on vampirism - an annotated, interdisciplinary, selected bibliography. It also includes literature on Dracula etc., and you may disagree on some of the comments, but I found it very useful when I first found it. It's from 2003, so obviously newer books are not included.

Note: An updated edition of Ruthner's bibliography can be found in Bertschik and Tuczay's Poetische Wiedergänger (Francke Verlag, 2005).