Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Contagion, Race, & Gender

Full Tuition: $200 — Scholarship options are available in the drop-down enrollment menu for you to self-select.

Instructor: Hollis | 3-weeks | Mondays | October 16 - October 30 | 7:00 - 9:00 PM ET | ONLINE

Hollywood is full of vampires these days, but Bram Stoker’s Dracula is the original. Dracula first stalked onto the scene in 1897, and has been a lasting presence in literature, pop culture, and art since then. The character has gone through so many iterations that when new readers encounter Dracula the novel, they are often surprised. Dracula is many things—a shapeshifter, a predator, a nobleman, a creature of the night, a foreigner, and the prototype for all the vampires who came after him. Dracula, the novel, is also about many things. It’s about the famous vampire, yes, but so much more. It’s about the collision of science and superstition. It’s about the place of women in the changing world of the late Victorian period. It’s about the unknown and frightening other; the spreading of disease; and the fear of that which cannot be understood. 

In this course, we will read Bram Stoker’s Dracula together and think about how the novel explores cultural contagion, changing ideas of race and gender, and technological anxiety. We will also think about how the novel has influenced the horror genre and helped to create a subgenre in itself—vampire literature. We’ll explore these nuances over the course of three weeks, and wrap up our study just in time for Halloween.

Classes are recorded to allow for students to participate asynchronously. If you want to take a class but cannot make the class time, sign up for the asynchronous audit option to follow along on your own. Recordings are password protected and will only be available for the duration of the class and two weeks after it ends.

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Night School Bar pays instructors and staff a living wage, and your tuition goes toward supporting this practice. Please pick the payment tier that corresponds to your needs, and consider our commitment to fair labor practices when doing so. We will never request or require proof of need, and do not use an income-based sliding scale; we trust you to decide what payment tier is right for you. If you would like additional support deciding or would like to learn more about the practice of using a sliding scale, we recommend this resource from Embracing Equity. 

We are currently able to offer three full scholarships per class, and one full scholarship per person per term. If the scholarship tier you need is sold out or you would like to pay tuition on an installment basis, please email us directly, and we will work with you.

If at any point up to 48 hours before your first class session you realize you will be unable to take the class, please email us and we will reallocate your funds to a future class, to another student’s scholarship, or refund it. After that point, we are able to offer 50% refunds.