UVA Today

“Stanley is such a homie and his class, well, it’s the bomb.”

“TAKE THIS CLASS! Stepanic is awesome, the material is fascinating, and the lectures are engaging.”

“Greatest class ever. I don’t think I’ve ever had a class where everything was so clear and comprehensible. Really opened my eyes to how much a simple piece of folklore has affected so many things.”

(Photo by Dan Addison, University Communications)

Stepanic’s office hours are Mondays and Wednesdays from 1 to 2 p.m. In addition to his seemingly endless knowledge of Slavic folklore, visitors are treated to his eclectic collection of vampire-related kitsch. Because we know not everyone is so lucky, and since Halloween is right around the corner, UVA Today decided to share some of his collection here. We asked him to select some items and tell us about them.

(Photo by Dan Addison, University Communications)

“This is actually a comic book that a student just sent to me, literally today. Morbius is a character from Marvel Comics that was introduced in 1971,” Stepanic said. “He is still an active character. This was from the Midnight Sun series in 1990s that had a variety of darker characters like Vlad the Vampire Hunter and Ghost Rider.”

(Photo by Dan Addison, University Communications)

“This is Draculaura, the primary vampire character in the series ‘Monster High,’” Stepanic explained. “Mattel released these dolls. It was like a doll line that was monster-themed.”

“I give these as a treat to students around Halloween,” the scholar said. “Count Chocula was also introduced in 1971. The guy who originally did the voice for him was named Jim Dukes, and he tried to emulate Bela Lugosi when he did the voice, so it is kind of designed to look like Bela Lugosi.”

“This book was released in 2018. That’s when [Dacre Stoker] visited my class,” Stepanic said. “He is the great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, who wrote ‘Dracula.’  He did a sequel to ‘Dracula’ that wasn’t well-received. And then he went to do a prequel, and he did it with the assistance of this author, J.D. Barker. What I like about this is Bram Stoker is really the main character in it. So, he ties in lots of Bram Stoker’s actual biography and real people in his life.”

“I found a guy in Taiwan who makes custom-made shoes, so I asked him to make Dracula shoes,” Stepanic said. “I’ve had these for two years; incredible wear and whatever fabric this is or whatever he did, it’s impervious to water.”

(Photo by Dan Addison, University Communications)

“I paid 50 cents for this at a flea market at the church where my grandmother used to go to school in Marguerite, Pennsylvania – a really small, Polish-Slovak immigrant town,” Stepanic said. “The entries are about lots of things that relate to the witch craze from the 15th century up to the 18th century. There are lots of cool illustrations and woodcuts and things in here.”