Jan L. Perkowski

Jan L. Perkowski, aka "The Perkolator" or "Perksy" as affectionately called by his students, is originally from Perth Amboy, NJ, and is Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Virginia. He has a PhD from Harvard University. He attracted attention when he published research into alleged vampire folklore in the 1970s that was easily sensationalized in the press and has a vogue among vampire fans.

Perkowski was employed by the National Museum of Man in Canada in 1968 - 69 to conduct research for the Canadian Centre for Folk Culture Studies in the area of Wilno, Ontario, to study Kaszubian Polish folklore and traditions. His 1972 report, "Vampires, Dwarves, And Witches Among The Ontario Kashubs" inspired sensational articles in Psychology Today, The Canadian Magazine, and The National Enquirer which got it denounced on the floor of the Canadian House of Commons.

In 1989 he published The Darkling: A Treatise on Slavic Vampirism which contains original vampire accounts translated into English from over twenty languages, many for the first time, including a vampire trial in Dubrovnik in 1737. The book is currently being added as a chapter in his forthcoming work Vampire Lore (2006).

Perkowski teaches an undergraduate class at the University that details the mythology of vampires. The class is a survey of vampire mythology in western culture spanning ancient times to the present. Perkowski himself approaches the vampire as an outgrowth of the culture in which its legend arose - often more a mortality tale than anything else. He also teaches graduate courses in Slavic Mythology, Russian Language, and diachronic linguistics.

Publications

1969: A Kashubian idiolect in the United States.
1972: Vampires, dwarves and witches among the Ontario Kashubs. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada : 1972.
1976: Vampires of the Slavs. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA : Slavica, 1976. ISBN 0-89357-026-5
1978: Gusle and ganga among the Hercegovinians of Toronto. Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA : University Microfilms International, 1978. ISBN 0-8357-0321-5
1982: The Romanian folkloric vampire. East Europe Quarterly, September 1982. Reprinted in The Vampire: A casebook, Alan Dundes, ed. (University of Wisconsin Press, 1998) ISBN 0-299-15924-8
1989: The Darkling: A Treatise on Slavic Vampirism. Columbus, Ohio, USA : Slavica, 1989. ISBN 0-89357-200-4 [1]
2000: Linguistic History Engraved in Gold and Silver: Legends on the Coins of St. Vladimir.

External links