Theorising the Contemporary Zombie

Theorising the Contemporary Zombie
Author: Scott Hamilton
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2022-05-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1786838583

Zombies have become an increasingly popular object of research in academic studies and, of course, in popular media. Over the past decade, they have been employed to explain mathematical equations, vortex phenomena in astrophysics, the need for improved laws, issues within higher education, and even the structure of human societies. Despite the surge of interest in the zombie as a critical metaphor, no coherent theoretical framework for studying the zombie actually exists. Addressing this current gap in the literature, Theorising the Contemporary Zombie defines zombiism as a means of theorising and examining various issues of society in any given era by immersing those social issues within the destabilising context of apocalyptic crisis; and applying this definition, the volume considers issues including gender, sexuality, family, literature, health, popular culture and extinction.

Theorising the Contemporary Zombie

Theorising the Contemporary Zombie
Author: Scott Hamilton
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2022-05-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1786838591

Zombies have become an increasingly popular object of research in academic studies and, of course, in popular media. Over the past decade, they have been employed to explain mathematical equations, vortex phenomena in astrophysics, the need for improved laws, issues within higher education, and even the structure of human societies. Despite the surge of interest in the zombie as a critical metaphor, no coherent theoretical framework for studying the zombie actually exists. Addressing this current gap in the literature, Theorising the Contemporary Zombie defines zombiism as a means of theorising and examining various issues of society in any given era by immersing those social issues within the destabilising context of apocalyptic crisis; and applying this definition, the volume considers issues including gender, sexuality, family, literature, health, popular culture and extinction.

Living with the Living Dead

Living with the Living Dead
Author: Greg Garrett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2017-05-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0190260475

When humankind faces what it perceives as a threat to its very existence, a macabre thing happens in art, literature, and culture: corpses begin to stand up and walk around. The dead walked in the fourteenth century, when the Black Death and other catastrophes roiled Europe. They walked in images from World War I, when a generation died horribly in the trenches. They walked in art inspired by the Holocaust and by the atomic attacks on Japan. Now, in the early twenty-first century, the dead walk in stories of the zombie apocalypse, some of the most ubiquitous narratives of post-9/11 Western culture. Zombies appear in popular movies and television shows, comics and graphic novels, fiction, games, art, and in material culture including pinball machines, zombie runs, and lottery tickets. The zombie apocalypse, Greg Garrett shows us, has become an archetypal narrative for the contemporary world, in part because zombies can stand in for any of a variety of global threats, from terrorism to Ebola, from economic uncertainty to ecological destruction. But this zombie narrative also brings us emotional and spiritual comfort. These apocalyptic stories, in which the world has been turned upside down and protagonists face the prospect of an imminent and grisly death, can also offer us wisdom about living in a community, present us with real-world ethical solutions, and invite us into conversation about the value and costs of survival. We may indeed be living with the living dead these days, but through the stories we consume and the games we play, we are paradoxically learning what it means to be fully alive.

Decolonizing the Undead

Decolonizing the Undead
Author: Stephen Shapiro
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2022-08-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1350271144

Looking beyond Euro-Anglo-US centric zombie narratives, Decolonizing the Undead reconsiders representations and allegories constructed around this figure of the undead, probing its cultural and historical weight across different nations and its significance to postcolonial, decolonial, and neoliberal discourses. Taking stock of zombies as they appear in literature, film, and television from the Caribbean, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, India, Japan, and Iraq, this book explores how the undead reflect a plethora of experiences previously obscured by western preoccupations and anxieties. These include embodiment and dismemberment in Haitian revolutionary contexts; resistance and subversion to social realities in the Caribbean and Latin America; symbiosis of cultural, historical traditions with Western popular culture; the undead as feminist figures; as an allegory for migrant workers; as a critique to reconfigure socio-ecological relations between humans and nature; and as a means of voicing the plurality of stories from destroyed cities and war-zones. Interspersed with contextual explorations of the zombie narrative in American culture (such as zombie walks and the television series The Santa Clarita Diet) contributors examine such writers as Lowell R. Torres, Diego Velázquez Betancourt, Hemendra Kumar Roy, and Manabendra Pal; works like China Mieville's Covehithe, Reza Negarestani's Cycolonopedia, Julio Ortega's novel Adiós, Ayacucho, Ahmed Saadawi's Frankenstein in Baghdad; and films by Alejandro Brugués, Michael James Rowland, Steve McQueen, and many others. Far from just another zombie project, this is a vital study that teases out the important conversations among numerous cultures and nations embodied in this universally recognized figure of the undead.

CONVERSION THEORY

CONVERSION THEORY
Author: Rich Restucci
Publisher: Severed Press
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2016-12-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781925597073

Plague. Infection. Death. Civilization is gone, assaulted by the walking dead. Within these pages lies a man's tale of unspeakable horror and humor told during the zombie apocalypse. One man stands immune to the greatest plague in human history. Our hero, should you choose to call him that, is now hunted by organizations that would use him for his immunity. Chased by relentless forces incapable of mercy or pity, our hero and his friends must fight off those that seek to destroy them. Government scientists seek him. The dead want to eat him. Humanity needs him. No longer is our hero a useless plebe, unable to tell the difference between a clip and a magazine. No longer is he a fool who continually makes mistakes. He is now an utter badass who continually makes mistakes. Join him as he chronicles his successes and failures in a world where success means finding an unopened can of Spam, and failure means death. Conversion Theory The Zombie Theories Series Book 3.

Zombies Are Us

Zombies Are Us
Author: Christopher M. Moreman
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2011-10-10
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0786488085

On the surface, the zombie seems the polar opposite of the human--they are the living dead; we, in essence, are the dying alive. But the zombie is also "us." Although decaying, it looks like us, dresses like us, and sometimes (if rarely) acts like us. In this volume, essays by scholars from a range of disciplines examine the zombie as a thematic presence in literature, film, video games, legal language, and philosophy, exploring topics including zombies and the environment, litigation, the afterlife, capitalism, and the erotic. Through this wide-ranging examination of the zombie phenomenon, the authors seek to discover what the zombie can teach us about being human. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

The Zombie Reader (First Edition)

The Zombie Reader (First Edition)
Author: Kieran Murphy
Publisher:
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2017-12-31
Genre:
ISBN: 9781516531981

The Zombie Reader explores the figure of the zombie from its origin in the Caribbean to its explosion in popular culture. Using a transdisciplinary approach, this anthology of classic and new texts on the zombie provides students with a fascinating case study to understand the interaction of culture, history, and ideology. Through four thematic parts, The Zombie Reader focuses on important concepts and historical events responsible for the rise of this iconic monster. It resituates the zombie within its African diaspora context and offers vetted material to study how the modern zombie emerged in Haiti as a reflection of the deadening effects of colonialism and slavery. It then traces how the zombie came to embody themes of exploitation and dehumanization in the age of industrialization and globalization. The anthology examines the zombie as a projection of dispossession and inner grief in the films of George A. Romero, the TV series The Walking Dead, and contemporary Haitian literature. It also addresses recent reinterpretations of the zombie as social allegory and a conscious undead. The revised first edition features reorganized and updated material. The Zombie Reader is well suited for courses in cultural, literary, and visual studies, especially those with interest in the legacies of colonialism and slavery. Kieran Murphy is an assistant professor in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has published several articles on Haitian studies and the zombie.

Zombies

Zombies
Author: Jennifer Rutherford
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 126
Release: 2013-10-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1136237305

Not so long ago zombies rarely shuffled out of B-grade horror movies and cult comic books, but today they are everywhere. Zombies are proliferating, demonstrating an extraordinary capacity to transport fluidly from genre to genre, from the apocalyptic future to the already survived past, and in and out of fictional form. Today they can be found in just about any genre or discourse and as they move sinuously across the cultural landscape they keep morphing; taking on ever new and ever more bizarre associations. Zombies would appear to be unthinkable, the ultimate nightmare of a world devoured by the dead, and yet more and more often this horror-scape provides a form of figurative capture for the way things are. This book explores why. Zombies explores the recent transformation of zombie from cult genre to a figure that pervades western culture. Rutherford examines the zombie as a powerful metaphor for a constellation of social forces that define contemporary reality. This is an ideal introduction to all that is social about zombies, for students and general readers alike. Extracts from Zombies, were recently published in Australian newspapers, The Age, The Canberra Times and the Sydney Morning Herald. Available now to read online: www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/dead-right-20130620-2olqr.html

The Repeating Dead

The Repeating Dead
Author: Nicholas A. Rose (author of The repeating dead)
Publisher:
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2014
Genre: Popular culture
ISBN: