The Podcast For Social Research

In episode 15 of (Pop) Cultural Marxism, Ajay, Isi, and Joseph explore vampires in media, across genre and time! Welcoming back Joseph after a few episodes away, the episode kicks off with a games roundtable on Monster Hunter: Wilds (Capcom, 2025) and Pentiment (Obsidian, 2022), among other things. Then the group quickly dives into all things vampire. From Capital to Castelvania, the conversation analyzes the psychosexual, political economic, Orientalist, literary, genre, social, and even epidemiological metaphors, allegories, and tropes that haunt vampire stories and have made the figure of the vampire of such perennial—if shifting—fascination. How have vampire stories changed over time? Why do vampire stories shift and blur genre and valence? Why is the vampire such a perennial stand-in, across so many fields, often at the same time? Objects in consideration include: Carmilla (Sheridan Le Fanu, 1872), Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897), Interview with the Vampire (novel: Anne Rice, 1976; TV adaptation: Rolin Jones