Zombies Are Us : Essays on the Humanity of the Walking Dead

by Moreman, Christopher M.; Rushton, Cory

• ISBN13: 9780786459124
• ISBN10: 0786459123
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-09-21
• Publisher: McFarland & Co Inc Pub

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Christopher M. Moreman is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at California State University-East Bay, where he teaches courses in comparative religion. Cory James Rushton is an associate professor of English at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction-They're Us: Zombies, Humans/Humans, Zombies	p. 1
The Zombie in Humanity
Your Zombie and You: Identity, Emotion, and the Undead	p. 11
Rave from the Grave: Dark Trance and the Return of the Dead	p. 24
Porn of the Dead: Necrophilia, Feminism, and Gendering the Undead	p. 40
Modern Zombie Makers: Enacting the Ancient Impulse to Control and Possess Another	p. 62
"Corporate Zombies" and the Perils of "Zombie Litigation": The Walking Dead in American Judicial Writing	p. 76
Zombies in the Sacred
The Living Word Among the Living Dead: Hunting for Zombies in the Pages of the Bible	p. 87
Religion, Blasphemy, and Tradition in the Films of Lucio Fulci	p. 100
The Mutated Spirit: The Hollywood Zombie as Psychopomp	p. 112
Dharma of the Living Dead: A Buddhist Meditation on the Zombie	p. 123
Zombies into the Future
Digital Dead: Translating the Visceral and Satirical Elements of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead to Videogames	p. 141
How the Zombie Changed Videogames	p. 151
Undead Is the New Green: Zombies and Political Ecology	p. 169
Plans Are Pointless; Staying Alive Is as Good as It Gets: Zombie Sociology and the Politics of Survival	p. 183
Bibliography	p. 195
Filmography	p. 206
Video Games and Discography	p. 210
About the Contributors	p. 211
Index	p. 213
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