Written for Handbook of the Vampire by Nikki Foster-Kruczek and Catherine Pugh the Chapter Page can be found here.
This entry into the Handbook of the Vampire looked into the psychology of vampirism and so like ‘Beyond Humanity’: An Expedition Charting Non-Human Identities did touch into those who identify as vampires, though I felt this had an edge of critical thinking that was less obvious in the other chapter. The authors took a particularly Freudian view of the subject, using the work of Ernest Jones quite extensively. Because of this they looked at arousal through bloodplay, which was noticeably missing in the previous chapter. They also, early in the chapter, posit “clinical vampirism technically does not exist” (3), instead tying the consumption of blood with other fetishes and, later in the chapter, go beyond Freud and look at hemomania, suggesting the need for one’s own blood exhibited with that condition might develop through poor impulse control to a wider need.
What I thought interesting was the take on identity and the idea of narrative identity (defining one’s identity through storytelling). If an individual identifies as other-than-human, then there is difficulty in becoming part of a community and a clash with the typical perception of normality. This underlines the importance of the vampire community for the individual but also indicates why media generated ‘rules’ are adopted into that identity and that the consumption of texts around vampires helps shape the narrative identity and, ultimately, self-identification is the key.
This was a fascinating chapter of the Handbook.
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