The Politics of Blood: Queer Vampires in Global and Latin American Cinema (in English)

In this course we will examine the vampire in global cinema as a queer and political entity through which regimes of power, desire and extraction can be imagined and contested. We will move beyond Eurocentric gothic traditions and foreground Latin American cinema, placing it in dialogue with films from Europe, Asia, and North America. Through close analysis of films and critical texts, students will explore how vampiric bodies disrupt normative boundaries of sexuality, kinship, temporality, and belonging. Special attention will be paid to queer vampirism as a mode of resistance and survival, and to blood as a site of labor, commodity, inheritance, contagion and affect. In-class discussions will consider why the vampire continues to return across cultures and historical moments, and what its persistence reveals about power, embodiment, and life. (At least two 0300-level Spanish courses or instructor approval.)