Dracula Takes The Pulse of Culture with Geoffrey Reiter

37 North Market Street,Lancaster PA 17603

16 September, 2022

Description

Geoffrey says "The year 2022 marks the 125th birthday of one the most iconic figures in modern horror, Count Dracula.  Like so many well-known novels, however, Bram Stoker’s original book Dracula is very different from its reputation.  "One of the most overlooked aspects of Dracula is its religious content.  Stoker believed that novels should function like Christ’s parables, as sites for moral and religious instruction through storytelling.  "One of the ways he does this in Dracula is by portraying an anti-Christ figure (the Count) who is opposed by a group united against him.  These vampire hunters become a sort of collective Body of Christ—a church.  Understanding the original novel better can help us see the ways in which the figure of Count Dracula has morphed over time to resemble the values of the cultures that have adapted him." Geoffrey Reiter is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Literature at Lancaster Bible College and an associate editor at the website Christ and Pop Culture.  He loves speculative fiction of all kinds—fantasy, science fiction, weird horror—and has published dozens of essays, web articles, stories, and poems in those genres.  He lives with his family in the Lancaster area in a former nineteenth-century one-room schoolhouse. Don't let his living arrangements spook you out. Mr. Reiter is a fine young man, so we're told. This should be a great evening of education and winsome cultural engagement. Bring your friends, be they literary, religious, atheistic, blood-averse, fiction-fearful, educated, social, reclusive, friendly, or nocturnal. Enjoy the discussion, and have some red velvet cake and coffee. Character dress-up is optional but will be rewarded richly. Start with a cape, and take it from there.