Vampires, Viruses and Verbalisation: Bram Stoker's Dracula As a Genealogical Window into Fin-De-Siècle Science

40 Pages Posted: 24 Mar 2018

See all articles by Hub Zwart

Hub Zwart

Radboud University Nijmegen, Faculty of Science, ISIS; EUR

Date Written: March 20, 2018

Abstract

This paper analyses Bram Stoker’s classic Dracula as a literary document which reflects important scientific and technological developments of the fin-the-siècle era, ranging from blood transfusion and virology via psychotherapy and psychoanalysis up to brain research and communication technology. These developments not only herald a new style of scientific thinking, but also foreshadow a number of developments still relevant for contemporary culture. In other words, I read Dracula as a window into biomedical and bio-political challenges surfacing in the 1890s, but evolving into major research areas. Rather than seeing science and literature as separate cultures, moreover, Dracula as a case study reveals how techno-scientific and literary developments mutually challenge and mirror one another, so that we may use Stoker’s novel to deepen our understanding of contemporary science-related developments and vice versa. Dracula provides a window into fin-de-siècle research practices, collating various disciplines (haematology, virology, psychotherapy, neurology) into a genealogic Gesamtbild. Thus, Stoker’s novel elucidates the techno-scientific and socio-cultural constellation into which psychoanalysis was born. The common epistemic profile of this maieutic backdrop, I will argue, is that both psychoanalysis and Dracula reflect a triumph of the symbolic over the imaginary as a techno-scientific strategy for coming to terms with the threatening real.

Keywords: Bram Stoker’s Dracula; science and literature; psychoanalysis and literature; psychoanalysis and science; continental philosophy of science

Suggested Citation

Zwart, Hub, Vampires, Viruses and Verbalisation: Bram Stoker's Dracula As a Genealogical Window into Fin-De-Siècle Science (March 20, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3144694 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3144694

Hub Zwart (Contact Author)

Radboud University Nijmegen, Faculty of Science, ISIS ( email )

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Nijmegen, 6500GL
Netherlands

HOME PAGE: http://www.filosofie.science.ru.nl/

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