Aviva Briefel. "Monster Pains: Masochism, Menstruation, and Identification in the Horror Film. " Film Quarterly  58.3 (2005): 16-27. Alumni - Research Library. ProQuest.  1 Dec. 2008 <http://www.proquest.com/>

In Monster Pains: Masochism, Menstruation, and Identification in the Horror Film, Briefel discusses the role of masochism and menstruation in the audience’s identification with the film’s monster in classic horror films, such as Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931).  He analyzes the way different monsters appeal to the audience.  He proposes a theory of the gendering of the pain felt by the monster and how it can elicit the audience’s identification with it or sympathy for it.  He posits that the symbolically menstrual elements of Dracula would have drawn audiences to the film.

U. C. Knoepflmacher. "Editor’s Preface: Hybrid Forms and Cultural Anxiety." SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 48.4 (2008): 745-754.

In Hybrid Forms and Cultural Anxiety, Knoepflmacher discusses cultural anxieties towards mongrels, half-races, and other forms of hybrids. He analyzes the evolution of attitudes towards “hybrids” from before Darwinian science to the modern day, where the word “hybrid” usually has a positive connotation. He traces the reflections of these anxieties in literature and art in depictions of monstrous violations of the natural order, such as in Dr. Jekyll, Dracula, and other vampires. Knoepflmacher’s interpretation of aspects of Dracula as resonating with cultural anxieties reinforces Phillips’ theory of the film Dracula’s success through appealing to contemporary cultural anxieties.

Freeland, Cynthia A. The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000.

In Chapter 4 of The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror, Freeland offers a feminist interpretation of Stoker’s novel, Dracula, and three of its film incarnations, including Browning’s Dracula (1931). She focuses on the sexual transformation of Dracula and the changing nature of his evil through his incarnations in these works.

This section of the book is ordered chronologically and charters the evolution of Dracula through Stoker’s original novel Dracula (1897), Browning’s Dracula (1931), Badham’s Dracula (1979), and Coppola’s Dracula (1992). In the novel, as in Nosferatu, Dracula is unremittingly evil, symbolized by his ugly, disgusting appearance, hairy palms and nostrils, and bad breath. He is an abomination of nature, a thing that causes revulsion and disgust. Freeland asserts that, for this Dracula, “the threat of gender transgression lurks amid scenes of erotic abnormality and rape.” She compares this Dracula to Browning’s, noting Dracula’s transformation into a “sex icon with continental flair.” Perhaps this sort of Dracula was more appealing to contemporary audiences. The nature of this Dracula’s evil was primarily that of a sexual threat and male predator, not that of the intrinsically foul. Freeland goes on to analyze more recent films, in which Dracula is increasingly portrayed in a sympathetic light and with a greater depth of character.

Markley, Robert. “Transgression and Irrelevance: A Reply to Geoffrey Galt Harpham.” Oxford University Press. 2006, American Literary History.   

    April 2008

    <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_literary_history/v018/18.2markley.html>.    

    The teaching of humanities has been suffering and its components, poetry and literature, have consequentially been forced into unfortunate roles. The fault lies in those who teach humanities, because they view it as a source of payment instead of cultural enrichment. The instructors’ beliefs sprout from the cultural relevance at the time, which boils down to sociopolitical and economic stance. For example, in the eighteenth century, poetry was called “sacred to the Good and the Great.” Because of the time period, this means that poetry was at the whim of the bloody politics of England and the profits that prevailed in politics.
    In modern culture, humanists epitomize transgression and irrelevance because there is clearly no other fulfilling outcome. Therefore, the satisfaction they gain in their teachings is inappropriate and has nothing to do with the literature itself. Markley’s example of this is Donald Sutherland’s character in Animal House. He plays the bored Professor Dave Jennings who attempts to evoke interest in Milton from a completely unresponsive class. He tries to draw a connection between Milton and a teenager’s appeal, asking if Milton was “trying to tell us that being bad was more fun than being good?” Jennings ends up succumbing to this lesson of life and sleeps with one of his students. He admits to the class, possible to again inspire some relevance, that Milton is boring and outdated, only to be interrupted by the bell. Then he lets his guard down entirely when he whines about missing papers. He eliminates any passion in humanities when he yells, “I’m not joking. This is my job!” Markley’s point is that Sutherland’s character categorizes humanities as an artistic matter that can only be expressed by personal means, such as in the novel he is writing. A professor cannot force a love of humanities onto an entire generation that is college students. These students, in return, seem to lose track of anything beautiful in life and scale the purpose down to alcohol and broads. From a different perspective, what if these students do care about humanities, but only in their personal expression, that is to say in a form of a party. Do students fulfill this learning experience in concerts, wooing girls and relationships?