Vampires have titillated, horrified, and thrilled audiences with their transfiguring desires and insatiable hungers, or so says professor Sara Hackenberg, who introduced a lower-level English class about them to SF State.

“I’ve always found vampires to be fascinating characters. They are both fascinating sort of literal supernatural creatures, and they always mean something more,” Hackenberg said.

Hackenberg, who has been teaching at SF State since 2004, thought of the idea for the class, titled "The Vampire Tradition," after she saw how supernatural creatures were common in 19th century mystery novels.

She also said she designed “The Vampire Tradition” to be a lower-level class because she wanted to reach a different variety of students, adding that most of the students in her class are not English majors. The class was offered for the first time this semester.

The class blends serial narratives, which are texts that are told in installments, poetry, as well as films and television shows featuring vampires, Hackenberg said.

“This is the first vampire class I have taught. I have taught vampire text before, but not an entire class on just vampires,” she said.

Hackenberg, who graduated with a degree in English from UC Berkeley and earned her doctorate from Stanford, said she enjoys teaching this class and feels that her students are what make the class so special.

“I liked the idea of the class,” said Jim Kohn, 62, the English department chair. “Many years ago we had a similar course taught by professor Leonard Woolf, who taught about Dracula and Frankenstein. Students loved that class, as I am sure they love Sara Hackenberg’s class.”

Hackenberg said she was really struck by her students, and how on the first day of class she asked them to write down why they were interested in vampires and they came up with incredibly sophisticated answers.

“One student described the vampire as an 'other,' and I think that that is what the vampire really is, they are always more of an 'other' entity than what they literally are,” Hackenberg said. “Vampires are allegorical, they’re symbolic, and they have significances that get to the heart of the existence of life and death. Mortality and immortality, eating and sex, and all of things of that sort.”

Beginning with late 18th century literature, including Joseph Le Fanu’s “Carmilla,” Hackenberg said the class tries to fit in 150 years of vampire literature and pop culture in one semester-long class.

“I know the class is popular among students,” Kohn said. “I guess vampires never really do die.”

Kohn, who has been teaching at SF State since the 1970s, added that it is not very difficult for a professor to propose a new course.

It begins with the faculty, in one’s own program, Kohn said, adding that the course proposal will then go to the department chair, then to the Humanities Council, and then to the administration for approval before it may be offered.

“She chooses interesting material, and always engages her students in what she is presenting,” Kohn said of Hackenberg's class.

Laura Zeiger, an English and creative writing student, said she really enjoys how the class exposes how the old, traditional literature and mythology on vampires tie into the new, 20th century take on vampires. She said Hackenberg is very to the point and animated, and that the class is well taught.

Sarah Colter, 20, an American and English literature student said the class sounded really interesting, which is why she took it.

“I had never before seen anything like it,” Colter said. “I really like learning about how vampires in films relate back to the original stories.”

Kwame Phillips-Solomon, 25, who is taking the class because he thought the subject matter sounded very interesting, said he enjoyed Hackenberg's viewpoints on vampires.

“Her take on the archetypes and what they mean were what I found interesting,” said Phillips-Solomon, an electrical engineering student. “She thinks of the literature, which was written during a specific time period, as a type of commentary, that the literature reflects the society of that time.”