My friend asked me to cover her freshman writing classes today while she went to a wedding in upstate New York, and I was happy to do it. While leaving academia is the right decision for me, I still love being in the classroom.

The theme of the course is vampires. This week, the students had been assigned the Jim Jarmusch film Only Lovers Left Alive, about a pair of ancient vampires bumming around in the decaying fringes of Tangier and Detroit. I saw it last night and liked it. I would have liked it more had it taken itself less seriously. I did laugh at the best line: “You drank Ian!”

To get the class started, I asked the students to introduce themselves and to answer this question: if you were a 2,000-year-old vampire, which century would you look back on most fondly, and why?

As they went around the room, almost all of them chose the century we’re in now, or the last one. They gave various reasons: some said they didn’t want to relive a past in which they might have been enslaved or oppressed, while others said they liked the internet and central heating. Only a few dreamed about the Renaissance or Enlightenment. One sensibly observed that the Black Death would have been cozy for vampires.

I was surprised by the lack of range in these responses. Didn’t it occur to them that in the last two millennia there were many times and places where a vampire might not fall victim to racism or homophobia? That the past is full of radical alternatives to our own society? That central heating is useless if you can’t feel cold?

Even when the gate is left open, it’s so hard to imagine what’s beyond the fences of current conditions. I realized, though, that in my excitement about all the possibilities I thought they might choose from, I’d given little thought to how college freshmen might actually respond. It’s so easy, after all, to get trapped in expectations.