From folkloric figures like Lamia and Grendel who feast on human flesh, to historical monsters like Vlad the Impaler and Elizabeth Báthory who reveled in human blood and carnage, to Bram Stoker’s legendary Dracula, the antecedents to the modern vampire have instilled fear and morbid fascination for centuries. Especially during periods of social devastation, imperial conquest, plague, and mass death, vampires and vampiric figures have featured prominently in popular imagination. In every case, the cultural phenomenon of the vampire reveals much about the time, place, and people from which it emerged—and the persistent relevance and adaptability of the vampire allegory likewise reveals much about the evolution of human society and its timeless struggle to come to terms with death. So, in the age of runaway capitalist destruction and climate catastrophe, what should we make of the popularity of new vampire allegories like Netflix’s Midnight Mass and the Provincetown series in the new season of FX’s American Horror Story?

In this panel discussion, just in time for Halloween, the TRNN team hosts a wide-ranging discussion about the historical significance of the vampire and its enduring allure in the 21st century. Our panel today includes: TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez; TRNN Managing Editor Jocelyn Dombroski; Marc Steiner, host of The Marc Steiner Show; and special guest, renowned author and editor Lyta Gold.

Pre-Production/Studio/Post Production: Stephen Frank

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Maximillian Alvarez is an Izzy-Award-winning journalist and the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Executive Director of The Real News Network. He is the founder and host of Working People, "a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today," which he started after his family lost their home and life savings during the Financial Crash of 2008 and the ensuing Great Recession. Alvarez is the author of The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke, a collection of interviews with US workers recorded during Year One of of the Covid-19 pandemic. His forthcoming book—tentatively titled “American Sacrifice: Working People Fight for The Lives (and Our Future) in America’s ‘Sacrifice Zones’”—is under contract with Haymarket Books. From April 2022 to March 2024, Alvarez hosted and produced The Art of Class War series on Breaking Points. From September 2016 to January 2019, he was a regular contributor and then a columnist for The Baffler magazine. Prior to joining TRNN, Alvarez was an Associate Editor at the Chronicle Review at The Chronicle of Higher Education. Prior to that, he was a graduate student-worker and rank-and-file member of the Graduate Employees’ Organization (AFT Local 3550) at the University of Michigan, where he earned a dual-PhD in History and Comparative Literature, taught undergraduates, and published academic articles in Media Theory and La Deleuziana: An Online Journal of Philosophy. Prior to that, he worked a litany of low-wage jobs in different restaurants, warehouses, factories, retail stores, etc. Alvarez’s writing has been featured in outlets like The Nation, Poynter, In These Times, Boston Review, The Baffler, Current Affairs, Dissent, Protean Magazine, The New Republic, Truthout, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. As an analyst and commentator, he has appeared on programs like PBS NewsHour, Breaking Points, Democracy Now!, The Laura Flanders Show, NPR’s 1A, The Hill’s Rising, This Is Hell!, Krystal Kyle & Friends, The Michael Brooks Show, The Jacobin Show, CounterPunch Radio, Citations Needed, Bad Faith with Briahna Joy Gray, Know Your Enemy, Srsly Wrong, Left Anchor, Revolutionary Left Radio, The End of Sport Podcast, Pod Damn America, The David Pakman Show, The Megyn Kelly Show, The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent, The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow, The David Feldman Show, and The Marianne Williamson Podcast.

Managing Editor

Jocelyn Dombroski is managing editor at The Real News Network.

Host, The Marc Steiner Show
Marc Steiner is the host of "The Marc Steiner Show" on TRNN. He is a Peabody Award-winning journalist who has spent his life working on social justice issues. He walked his first picket line at age 13, and at age 16 became the youngest person in Maryland arrested at a civil rights protest during the Freedom Rides through Cambridge. As part of the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968, Marc helped organize poor white communities with the Young Patriots, the white Appalachian counterpart to the Black Panthers. Early in his career he counseled at-risk youth in therapeutic settings and founded a theater program in the Maryland State prison system. He also taught theater for 10 years at the Baltimore School for the Arts. From 1993-2018 Marc's signature “Marc Steiner Show” aired on Baltimore’s public radio airwaves, both WYPR—which Marc co-founded—and Morgan State University’s WEAA.
 
marc@therealnews.com
 
@marcsteiner

Lyta Gold is a freelance writer and editor. She is also the host of the TRNN podcast Art for the End Times. Follow her at @lyta_gold.

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