Thursday, April 8, 2010

A masters degree in....Vampire literature?

Hi, my name is Connie, and I have a masters' degree in Vampire Literature.  Sounds absurd, right?  Well, in a couple of years, you might just encounter people saying that very sentence.  According to this article, University of Hertfordshire in England has been inspired by Stephanie Meyers' Twilight phenomenon and will be introducing this masters program this fall.

Their opening seminar features introductory lectures such as “‘You are the most dangerous creature I’ve ever met.’: Female Sexuality as Monstrous in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Series.”

With the ever-increasing popularity of the Twilight series, Meyers' books have begun to also receive attention from the "serious" literary circles and has even been studied in literature classes at Cambridge University.

Personally, I think the craze has gone too far when Twilight, a simple, quickly written, not that wonderful story is being taught as serious literature.  Is the vampire literature genre even enduring enough to be worth getting or teaching a masters' degree?

What do you all think of Twilight's entrance into serious literature circles?