Wed. 12/14/11: Vampires and Harvard

Vampires and Harvard
 "Breaking Dawn", the latest movie release based on author Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series, has grossed hundreds of millions of dollars in theaters all around the world. True Blood, an HBO series based on a vampire book series by Charlaine Harris, has racked up legions of fans, not to mention Golden Globe and Emmy wins. So why all this fuss about some tragically attractive, light-averse and blood thirsty protagonists?

That's what Sue Weaver Schopf set out to find out. Her class at Harvard Extension picks apart our unyielding fascination with the undead, tracing the myth back thousands of years, across books, poetry, film and TV. We talk to her about the very first vampires all the way up to Anne Rice and Edward Cullen.

Guest:
  Sue Weaver Schopf, associate dean for the Master of Liberal Arts program at the Harvard Extension School. She teaches a class called "The Vampire in Literature and Film," which traces the history of vampires from their first historical incarnations up to "Twilight" and "True Blood".