TWO lecturers at University College Worcester are getting ready to sink their teeth into a special conference.

Dr Meg Barker has co-organised the conference in Budapest, Hungary, to investigate and explore the legend of the vampire.

Lecturer Darren Oldridge will be presenting a paper at the conference in May.

The three-day conference is part of an on-going series entitled At the Interface and will be run as a project under the auspices of wickedness.net. It aims to bring people together from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions that are innovative and exciting.

Papers, reports and workshops are all on the cards for the vampire conference.

"It's all extremely good fun," said Ms Barker. "But there's a serious side too.

"We'll be looking at the vampire throughout history and how it crops up in literature and the media. It's a fascinating subject and we expect the conference to be over-subscribed as usual."

Subject matter is likely to include vampire-related disorders and their treatment, ancient and mediaeval myths surrounding the dead and undead, and vampires, gender and sexuality.

The conference is due to take place from Thursday, May 22 to Sunday, May 24.