Dracula: Antisemitism and British Gothic Literature

Season 5, Episode 2

This episode features a discussion between theatre dybbuk's artistic director, Aaron Henne, and Professor Carol Margaret Davison about Bram Stoker's Dracula, exploring the ways in which the societal concerns present at the time of its publication intersect with the prejudices and beliefs that are embedded in the text.

Professor Davison acted as a consulting scholar on theatre dybbuk's new world premiere production, Dracula (Annotated), which Aaron wrote and directed, and which opens in Los Angeles on September 26, 2025 then tours to Tucson and Cincinnati in the weeks that follow. In the piece, the company uses a unique blend of scholarly investigation and heightened theatricality to weave together the gothic characters and plot of Dracula with references to the forces at play in Victorian England that are still timely today.

This episode is a rebroadcast of an online Zoom event that was recorded live on August 10, 2025, as presented by the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program and hosted by Shirel Horovitz.

Read the transcript for "Dracula: Antisemitism and British Gothic Literature."

THE TEAM

Hosted by Aaron Henne and Shirel Horovitz

Scholarship provided by Carol Margaret Davison, PhD

Edited for the podcast by Julie A. Lockhart and Mark McClain Wilson

Theme music composed by Michael Skloff and produced by Sam K.S.

Transcription by Julie A. Lockhart

"Dracula: Antisemitism and British Gothic Literature" Learning Resources

Learn more about:

• Anti-Semitism and British Gothic Literature by Carol Margaret Davison

• blood libel

• the Wandering Jew

• the New Woman

• Aliens Act of 1905

• Oscar Wilde

• a new interpretation of Fagin from Oliver Twist

• Shylock from The Merchant of Venice

• The Devil and The Jews by Joshua Trachtenberg

• Figures of Conversion by Michael Ragussis

• The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

Watch with captions on YouTube:

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