American Magazine: November 2013

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wonk Q. Why are we so fascinated by vampires? What do vampire narratives reveal about us and our society? A. This is the question I ask my students at the end of the class. What we can say is that vampire stories are prominent in times of great change. This is when people come up with a vampire. It’s escapist, but it gives them the chance to deal with their fears. The vampire is a foil on which we can project all of our fears as a culture. It’s like a blank space: the vampire is fictional, so it’s safe to think about our fears in a fictional fantasy world. In the last 200 years, the vampire served to negotiate fears of immigration or of women who wanted the right to vote, so the vampire came in and killed only strong women. Fears of urbanization, industrialization— the vampire would stand in for all of these things. Every generation took the vampire as a signifier for another fear. And I think this is how it perpetuated itself as a story. The idea of blood as the carrier of life was an invention of English-language vampire stories of the early nineteenth century. Later, the heart was considered the life force—so we had monsters who ate the heart. Today zombies eat brains. This is because our culture determines death according to brain activity, so now the brain is the carrier of life force. The vampire, of course, is feeding off the life force. So blood is actually old-fashioned in that regard—but it has survived in the narratives, because blood continues to signify other key concepts, such as race, nationalism, and disease in today’s society. KATHARINA VESTER Department of History professor and director of the American Studies Program, College of Arts and Sciences The vampire gives us unique access to the past, allows us to look at our fears as if through a magnifying glass and to understand something about a culture in a way that we cannot get through historical documents. 14 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2013
on campus EMMY-AWARD WINNING newsman Anderson Cooper is AU’s 2013 Wonk of the Year. The CNN journalist collected the award at a packed Bender Arena, October 19, during All-American Weekend. Lauded for his reporting from some of the most perilous places on the planet—Egypt and Syria among them—Cooper, 46, garnered widespread praise for his emotional, hard-hitting coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which helped CNN land a prestigious Peabody Award. Cooper, whose brother committed suicide in 1988, says he empathizes with other people’s suffering. “I wanted to be around other people who spoke the language of loss. I found when I went to wars, when I went to places where terrible things were happening, life felt very real there and very precious,” says Cooper. “You can’t stop suffering. You can’t stop terrible things from happening, but you can bear witness.” BOTTOM PHOTO COURTESY OF CNN Celebrating change makers Honored by the Kennedy Political Union (KPU), which marks its 45th anniversary this year, Cooper is AU’s second Wonk of the Year. President Bill Clinton collected the inaugural trophy in 2012. The university created the award to recognize a well-known individual who represents the embodiment of a wonk: someone smart, passionate, focused, and engaged who creates meaningful change in the world. LET’S TALK #AMERICANMAG 15
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