Course Description:
This online seminar explores vampire literature and media through the lens of open and relational theology. We will examine how vampiric metaphors—desire, death, salvation, immortality, shame, power, and covenant—intersect with theological questions. From Dracula to True Blood to Twilight, students will reflect on the theological underpinnings of sin, freedom, relationality, and the divine lure within these stories.
🗓️ 10-Week Course Outline
📌 Week 1: What Is a Vampire, Theologically?
- Read: Excerpts from The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction
- Watch: Nosferatu (1922)
- Theology Focus: Intro to Open and Relational Theology (ORT); God as relational and non-coercive
- Discussion Prompt: How might the vampire be read as a distorted metaphor of divine longing or lack?
📌 Week 2: Blood and Covenant: Bram Stoker’s Dracula
- Read: Dracula by Bram Stoker (first half)
- Watch: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992, dir. Coppola)
- Theology Focus: Sin, salvation, and sexual shame; kenosis and incarnation
- Article: “The Blood is the Life: Vampirism and Eucharistic Imagery” (theology blog excerpt)
📌 Week 3: Desire and Control in Dracula
- Read: Finish Dracula
- Discuss: Lucy and Mina—Madonna/whore, submission and liberation
- Theology Focus: Divine desire vs. domination
- Discussion Prompt: In ORT, love does not control. How do the vampires in Dracula mirror or mock that?
📌 Week 4: Queerness and Immortality: Interview with the Vampire
- Read: Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
- Watch: Interview with the Vampire (1994 film or 2022 AMC series pilot)
- Theology Focus: Eternal life, queer theology, nonbinary bodies
- Article: Chad Bahl on divine longing and German yearning in Sinners
📌 Week 5: True Blood and the Myth of the Outcast Savior
- Watch: Episodes 1–3 of True Blood (HBO)
- Read: Excerpts from Sinners: Jesus and His Kin Among the Persecuted by Chad Bahl
- Theology Focus: Blood as memory and intimacy; community and exclusion
- Discussion Prompt: What does it mean that God is always “out for blood,” but not in the punitive sense?
📌 Week 6: Teen Vampires and Evangelical Purity: Twilight
- Read: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (or excerpts)
- Watch: Twilight (2008 film)
- Theology Focus: Abstinence, desire, coercion, divine persuasion
- Article: “Open Theism and Divine Desire” by Tom Oord (excerpt)
📌 Week 7: Embodiment, Shame, and Desire
- Read: Excerpts from Embodied: An Open and Relational Theology of the Body by Thomas Jay Oord (and your own work if applicable)
- Watch: Let the Right One In (Swedish version or Let Me In American version)
- Theology Focus: Body theology, consent, transgression, and intimacy
📌 Week 8: Race, Class, and Bloodlines
- Watch: Blacula (1972) and/or Vampires vs. the Bronx (2020)
- Read: Short stories from The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories (especially “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes”)
- Theology Focus: Liberation theology; divine solidarity with the marginalized
- Article: “Jesus, the Oppressed God” by Jon Sobrino (excerpt)
📌 Week 9: Rewriting the Vampire: Theological Satire and Parody
- Read: Selections from Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or What We Do in the Shadows
- Watch: Episode 1 of What We Do in the Shadows (TV or film)
- Theology Focus: Humor, the absurd, the postmodern vampire, and divine disruption
- Prompt: Does parody disarm evil, or reveal new truth?
📌 Week 10: Final Reflections and Presentations
- Student Presentations or Video Essays
- Final Paper Due
- Prompt: Choose a text or film and explore how an open and relational theology reinterprets its symbols, moral framework, and cultural significance.
🎓 Grading Structure (100 Points Total)
- Discussion Posts:
- 10 Initial x 10 weeks = 100 pts
- 2 thoughtful replies per week (5 pts each) = 100 pts
- Total for discussions = 200 pts, but scaled down to 40% of final grade
- Final Paper or Project (2,000–2,500 words or 10–15 min video) = 50%
- Participation in live (optional) Q&A or check-ins = 10% (flexible extra credit)
Michael Joseph Brennan 