Dracula Lunchtime Bites

Music and the Gothic, 1784-1820

Has the music of Gothic novels and plays always been scary and unsettling? If not, what did it sound like and how did it affect its listeners? Dr Emma McEvoy considers some of the surprising music of early Gothic literature and explores the musical legacy of melodrama. This talk is free, but you need to book in advance (it takes less than a minute).

Details of how to join the talk will be emailed to you during the morning of 29 January.

This talk is free, but you need to book in advance (it takes less than a minute).

About the speaker

All of the speakers in the series are external to the University of Derby.

This talk is by Dr Emma McEvoy, University of Westminster.

Book your place

You can book your place here www.ticketsource.co.uk/draculalunchtimebites. You will be sent a link after you have booked.

Future speakers

Wed 26 February, 12.30–13.00
'What have Romanians made of Dracula?'
Dr Anca-Simina Martin, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is not well known in Romania. In this talk Dr Anca Martin examines the reception of the novel in Romania, focusing on journalists’ reactions to its first three translations: the previously lost interwar edition, now rediscovered and successfully sold at Bran Castle; the 1990 version (suppressed during the communist period); and its 1992 reissue, which coincided with the release of Francis Ford Coppola’s film Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

This talk is free, but you need to book in advance (it takes less than a minute). Details of how to join the talk will be emailed to you during the morning of 26 February.

Wed 26 March, 12.30–13.00
‘Dracula’s Cape and a Cloaked Novel’
Dr Anna Burton, University of Derby

It was in the stage adaptation (first performed in Derby in 1924) of Bram Stoker’s Dracula wherein the Count’s characteristic cape first appeared to shroud and define the vampire. Taking inspiration from this cloaked context, Dr Anna Burton will return to the 1897 novel to talk about how the original text is enveloped in dark shadows and fabrics, and in turn, it will consider how these trappings have contributed to our cultural understanding of Stoker’s work.

This talk is free, but you need to book in advance (it takes less than a minute). Details of how to join the talk will be emailed to you during the morning of 26 March.

Wed 30 April, 12.30–13.00
'The blood is the life’: The Role of Blood in Bram Stoker’s Dracula'
Dr Maddy Potter, University of Edinburgh

‘The blood is the life’ shouts Renfield in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In its Biblical echoes, it intimates the promise of eternal life – and the vampire’s perverse appropriation of that very promise. But Renfield’s exclamation is also strikingly literal, indeed medical. In this talk, Dr Maddy Potter will explore the role and implications of blood in Dracula and how it brings together the natural and the supernatural in the novel.
This talk is free, but you need to book in advance (it takes less than a minute). Details of how to join the talk will be emailed to you during the morning of 30 April.

About these events

These events are part of Dracula Returns to Derby, an AHRC-funded research project led by the University of Derby in partnership with Derby Museums, Derby Theatre, Bournemouth University and Sheffield Hallam University. A series of public workshops and events connect the city with the world’s most famous vampire. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram.