John Edgar Browning (born October 14, 1980) is an American author, editor, and scholar known for his nonfiction works about the horror genre, Dracula, and vampires in film, literature, and culture.Diamond, Laura, "Sinking his teeth into Dracula." Georgia Tech News Center. Retrieve at: https://www.news.gatech.edu/news/2014/10/21/sinking-his-teeth-dracula Previously on the faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Savannah College of Art and Design, he now teaches in the School of Cultural & Critical Studies and English department at Bowling Green State University.
Browning is considered an "expert on vampires specializing in the Dracula figure in film, literature, television, and popular culture". His works expound upon Dracula, horror, vampires, the supernatural, the un-dead, Bram Stoker, and gothic and cultural theory. Browning has appeared as an expert scholar on multiple documentary television series and consulted a number of other productions behind the scenes, including: National Geographic Channel's Taboo USA, Discovery Channel's William Shatner's Weird or What?, the seven-part AMC documentary series Eli Roth's History of Horror, Disney +'s The World According to Jeff Goldblum, as well as the History Channel's The UnXplained with William Shatner and History's Greatest Mysteries with Laurence Fishburne.
For his book Dracula in Visual Media, Browning documented over 700 "domestic and international Dracula films, television programs, documentaries, adult features, animations, and video games . . . [as well as] nearly 1000 domestic and international comic book titles and stage adaptations".Browning, John Edgar, and Caroline Joan (Kay) Picart. Dracula in Visual Media: Film, Television, Comic Book and Electronic Game Appearances, 1921–2010 (McFarland, 2011), 4. For the book, Browning won the Lord Ruthven Award, an award for deserving work in vampire fiction or scholarship. The book was also nominated for the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award (often called the Rondo Award) for Book of the Year in 2011, as was his book The Vampire; or, Detective Brand's Greatest Case in 2023 for Best Classic Horror Fiction, co-edited with Gary D. Rhodes.
Career Education and teaching Browning earned his B.A. from Florida State University and then his M.A. at the University of Central Oklahoma. He completed all his English doctoral coursework at Louisiana State University before transferring to American Studies at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York (SUNY-Buffalo), where he studied under Michael H. Frisch, Bruce Jackson, Sarah Elder, and Donald A. Grinde, Jr.
At SUNY-Buffalo, Browning received an Arthur A. Schomburg Fellowship in the Department of Transnational Studies. While there, Browning continued his doctoral studies and served as an adjunct instructor in English. One of the courses Browning taught at SUNY-Buffalo was "A Cultural History of the Walking Dead," a fifteen-week course. The course drew on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend as well as the films of George A. Romero. While teaching at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Browning lectured on vampires, zombies, and monsters,Diamond, Laura, "Sinking His Teeth into Dracula: Georgia Tech's Resident Horror Film Scholar," Georgia Tech News Center. Retrieve at: http://www.news.gatech.edu/features/sinking-his-teeth-dracula . as well as on Slasher cinema in a course entitled, "The Slasher Film: Gender, Disability, and Transgression.""LMC Course Descriptions," Georgia Tech School of Literature, Media and Communication. Retrieve at: http://www.lmc.gatech.edu/coursedescriptions?coursetype=&term=1&year=10&coursearea=&submit=search .
Doctoral dissertation For part of his doctoral dissertation, Browning conducted, over a period of two years, an ethnographic study of people who self-identify as vampire in New Orleans. Browning's fieldnotes recount the experience: "On the eve of the second Tuesday of every month, I have become, to the watchful bystander, a familiar presence in the French Quarter. Flying through the dusky sky over Bourbon Street, as I strolled along casually, were fast, sweeping brown bats: An homage, maybe, to the business of interviewing vampires? To my side hung the trusty brown leather satchel that housed my pen and paper, and digital voice recorder. I left politely at home, of course, the crucifix I didn't actually own, and the short wooden stake carved for me by an older brother when I was younger. For indeed the vampires with whom I was meeting tonight were not prisoners of lore and legend: theirs was a new lore, and they were becoming very quickly their own legend." Browning extended his ethnographic fieldwork to include real vampires living in Buffalo, NY.
For an op-ed in Deep South Magazine entitled Conversations with Real Vampires, Browning's notes further recount the experience: "We are meeting an hour later than usual for the third month in a row, because the sun, during the summer months, sets closer to 9 instead of 8. Tonight, I will ask for the first time if I can watch them feed." Browning has more recently elaborated on his experiences in Palgrave Communications, The Conversation UK,Browning, John Edgar (2015). "What they do in the shadows: my encounters with the real vampires of New Orleans." The Conversation UK, March 25, 2015. Retrieve at: https://theconversation.com/what-they-do-in-the-shadows-my-encounters-with-the-real-vampires-of-new-orleans-39208 twice in Discover (magazine)Browning, John Edgar (2015). "Real-Life Vampires Exist, and Researchers Are Studying Them." Discover, March 26, 2015. Retrieve at: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2015/03/26/real-life-vampires-exist/#.V7TpNY66z8U and The Atlantic.Browning, John Edgar (2015). "Life Among the Vampires." The Atlantic, October 31, 2015. Retrieve at: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/life-among-the-vampires/413446/
Professional affiliations Browning sits on a number of editorial and advisory boards, including the Board of Advisors"TBP Leadership." The Blood Project. Retrieve at: https://www.thebloodproject.com/leadership/ for The Blood Project (TBP) based out of Harvard Medical School, its members representing "leaders in their fields, including hematology, medical education, history of medicine, comparative and evolutionary medicine, art and medicine, literature in medicine, health literacy, and medical training in under-represented minorities"."Bringing Blood to Life: New Progressive Learning Website from Harvard Medical School for Med Students & Physicians." University College Dublin (UCD) School of Medicine, October 7, 2021. Retrieve at: https://www.ucd.ie/medicine/news/2021/newsstories/bringingbloodtolife/ He also sits on the Editorial Advisory Panel"Editors." Humanities & Social Sciences Communications. Retrieve at: https://www.nature.com/palcomms/editorialboard for Humanities & Social Sciences Communications (a Springer Nature journal), previously called Palgrave Communications; the Advisory Board"Advisory Board." Ethics International Press. Retrieve at: https://ethicspress.com/pages/advisory-board for Ethics International Press, founded in 1993 in Cambridge, UK to publish "academic books on Ethics and all related and associated topics" for "leading universities worldwide, the British Government, the European Commission, and to wholesalers, bookshops, libraries, agents, and individuals around the world";"About Us." Ethics International Press. Retrieve at: https://ethicspress.com/pages/about-us the Editorial Board"Editorial Board." Journal of Positive Sexuality. Retrieve at: https://journalofpositivesexuality.org/ for the Journal of Positive Sexuality, a multidisciplinary publication "designed to be accessible and beneficial to a large and diverse readership, including academics, policymakers, clinicians, educators, and students"; the Advisory Board"Advisory Board." Law, Culture and Humanities. Retrieve at: https://www.fdupress.org/law-culture-literature-series/ for the Series on Law, Culture and the Humanities, edited by Caroline Joan S. Picart and published by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; as well as the Executive Advisory Committee"Editorial Team." The Journal of Gods and Monsters. Retrieve at: https://godsandmonsters-ojs-txstate.tdl.org/godsandmonsters/about/editorialTeam for The Journal of Gods and Monsters, published through the Department of Philosophy at Texas State University.
Bibliography Books (authored) Dracula in Visual Media: Film, Television, Comic Book and Electronic Game Appearances, 1921-2010 as co-author with Caroline Joan S. Picart, afterword by Ian Holt, foreword by Dacre Stoker, introduction by David J. Skal, and contributions by J. Gordon Melton, Robert Eighteen-Bisang, Mitch Frye, Laura Helen Marks, and Dodd Alley Zombie Talk: Culture, History, Politics (Palgrave Pivot) as co-author with David R. Castillo, David Schmid, and David A. Reilly, afterword by William EggintonCastillo, David R., David Schmid, David A. Reilly, and John Edgar Browning (2015). Zombie Talk: Culture, History, Politics (Palgrave Pivot). Palgrave Macmillan. .
Books (edited) Bram Stoker's Dracula: The Critical Feast, An Annotated Reference of Early Reviews & Reactions, 1897-1913 as editor with afterword by J. Gordon Melton Bram Stoker's Gibbet Hill and Other Lost Writings: An Anthology as co-editor with Paul S. McAlduffMcAlduff, Paul S. and John Edgar Browning (2025). Bram Stoker's Gibbet Hill and Other Lost Writings: An Anthology. Palgrave Macmillan. . Dracula (Norton Critical Editions) as co-editor with David J. SkalStoker, Bram (2021). Dracula (Norton Critical Editions), 2nd ed., ed. John Edgar Browning and David J. Skal. W. W. Norton & Company. . Draculas, Vampires, and Other Undead Forms: Essays on Gender, Race, and Culture as co-editor with Caroline Joan S. Picart, foreword by David J. Skal The Fantastic in Holocaust Literature and Film: Critical Perspectives (Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy) as co-editor with Judith B. Kerman, foreword by Jane YolenKerman, Judith B., and John Edgar Browning, eds. (2015). The Fantastic in Holocaust Literature and Film: Critical Perspectives (Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy). McFarland. . The Forgotten Writings of Bram Stoker as editor with foreword by Elizabeth Miller and afterword by Dacre Stoker Graphic Horror: Movie Monster Memories as editor with foreword by David J. Skal and afterword by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro The King in Yellow as editor with author Robert W. ChambersChambers, Robert W. (2018). The King in Yellow, ed. John Edgar Browning. Lanternfish Press.. The King in Yellow (Clockworks Edition), 2nd ed. as editor with author Robert W. ChambersChambers, Robert W. (2019). The King in Yellow (Clockworks Edition), 2nd ed., ed. John Edgar Browning. Lanternfish Press.. New Queer Horror Film and Television (Horror Studies) as co-editor with Darren Elliott-SmithElliott-Smith, Darren, and John Edgar Browning, eds. (2020).New Queer Horror Film and Television (Horror Studies). University of Wales Press. . Old Hoggen and Other Adventures as co-editor with Brian J. Showers and author Bram StokerStoker, Bram (2017). Old Hoggen and Other Adventures, ed. John Edgar Browning and Brian J. Showers. Swan River Press. . A Quarter Century of Student Life at Tulane: A Dean's Narrative History, 1949-1975 as editor with author John H. StibbsStibbs, John H. (2013). A Quarter Century of Student Life at Tulane: A Dean's Narrative History, 1949-1975. Margaret Media, Inc. . Speaking of Monsters: A Teratological Anthology as co-editor with Caroline Joan S. Picart The Vampire, His Kith and Kin: A Critical Edition as editor with author Montague Summers The Vampire in Europe: A Critical Edition as editor with author Montague SummersSummers, Montague (2014). The Vampire in Europe: A Critical Edition, ed. John Edgar Browning. Apocryphile Press. .