{"390501":{"#nid":"390501","#data":{"type":"external_news","title":"What They Do in the Shadows: My Encounters with the Real Vampires of New Orleans","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Edgar Browning, a Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow in the \u003Cstrong\u003ESchool of Literature, Media and Communication\u003C\/strong\u003E, is featured in The Conversation, an independent source of news and views from the academic and research community. The column discusses his ethnographic research on the modern-day vampires found in communities in New Orleans.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Vampires walk among us. But these people aren\u2019t the stuff of nightmares \u2013 far from it actually. Just sit down for a drink with one of them and ask for yourself. That\u2019s if you can find one. They aren\u2019t necessarily looking to be found.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cReal vampires\u201d is the collective term by which these people are known. They\u2019re not \u201creal\u201d in the sense that they turn into bats and live forever but many do sport fangs and just as many live a primarily nocturnal existence. These are just some of the cultural markers real vampires adopt to express a shared (and, according to them, biological) essence \u2013 they need blood (human or animal) or psychic energy from donors in order to feel healthy.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Real vampires can also help us understand, and perhaps even shed, some of the ideological baggage each of us carries. They show us how repressive and oppressive categories can lead to marginalisation. Through them, we see the dark side of ourselves. More generally, this community shows that being different doesn\u2019t have to force you onto the margins of society. Real vampires can and do exist in both \u201cnormal\u201d society and their own communities, and that\u2019s okay.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/theconversation.com\/what-they-do-in-the-shadows-my-encounters-with-the-real-vampires-of-new-orleans-39208\u0022\u003EContinue to full article...\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27889","created_gmt":"2015-03-25 10:49:39","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 02:24:00","author":"Beth Godfrey","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","publication":"extreme temperatures","field_article_url":"","publication_url":"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/what-they-do-in-the-shadows-my-encounters-with-the-real-vampires-of-new-orleans-39208","dateline":{"date":"2015-03-25T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-03-25T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"390511":{"id":"390511","type":"image","title":"John Edgar Browning","body":null,"created":"1449246312","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:25:12","changed":"1475894403","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:40:03","alt":"John Edgar Browning","file":{"fid":"75524","name":"15c10302-p9-006_72_1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/15c10302-p9-006_72_1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/15c10302-p9-006_72_1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":98844,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/15c10302-p9-006_72_1.jpg?itok=k1emXxjp"}}},"media_ids":["390511"],"groups":[{"id":"1283","name":"School of Literature, Media, and Communication"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"9954","name":"Brittain Fellow"},{"id":"122421","name":"Browning"},{"id":"39781","name":"LMC"},{"id":"3040","name":"New Orleans"},{"id":"104081","name":"press"},{"id":"11102","name":"vampires"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}