Just because they're pale and have weird teeth...

Where would we be without universities, those vital centers of learning and research, where the most important topics and ideas are discussed?

A British university is to hold a conference on Vampires in an effort to counterbalance the "Americanization" of the fictional genre.

Delegates to the University of Hertfordshire's "Open Graves, Open Minds: Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture" conference to be held on April 16-17 will have their food served to them out of coffins as part of a mission to encourage students of all ages to study literature.

English lecturer Sam George, who has just launched a Master of Arts degree in vampire fiction at Hertfordshire, said the most famous vampire narrative of all, Dracula, was written by Irishman Bram Stoker and set in London and Whitby in Yorkshire, but that now with the "Twilight" saga and "True Blood," modern vampires have become Americanized.

So, let me get this straight...a bunch of Limeys are going to get together and discuss how a genre popularized by an Irishman that's loosely based on an Eastern European prince and which has roots in just about every culture in the world isn't sufficiently British anymore?

Yeah.