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Scholars of Dracula gathered last week at two academic conference in Britain to mark the centenary of the death of Bram Stoker. Times Higher Education reported that attendees expressed concern that American obsessions with vampires are hurting understanding of the relevant Victorian literature. Clive Bloom, emeritus professor of English and American literature at Middlesex University, said that "Gothic studies have become institutionalized and safe. We need to return to a more visceral and scary notion of the Gothic. We need to stop using Freud and go back to de Sade – it’s all about perversity and the will to power." Bloom also said that the "Americanization of the vampire," as reflected in the Twilight books, was unfortunate. In those books, Bloom said, "the dangerous violent aristocrat has become the dark boy no one talks to and who’s eternally 17."
