My research explores how the oft-maligned zombie genre reveals deep-seated American cultural tendencies drawn from the nation's history with colonization and imperialism. The zombie genre is a quintessentially American construct that has been flourishing in popular culture for nearly 60 years. Since George A. Romero first pioneered the genre with 1968's Night of the Living Dead, zombie narratives have demonstrated a persistent resilience in American culture to emerge as the ultimate American horror icon. First serving as a method to exploit and react to cultural anxieties in the 1960s, the zombie genre met the decade's tumultuous violence in international conflicts like the Vietnam War and domestic revolutions like the Civil Rights Movement. It adapted in the 1970s to expose a perceived excess in consumer culture before reflecting apocalyptic fears at the height of the Cold War in the 1980s. Following a period of rest in the relatively peaceful 1990s, the genre re-emerged in the early 2000s to reflect cultural anxieties spurred on by the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the subsequent resurgence of war those attacks inspired. Its ability to grow with American culture and reflect the relevant crises of the age in which each narrative is conceived suggests the genre can act as a barometer of cultural and social change and unrest. The zombie genre is ultimately an American construct as it is the only folkloric monster born of an American imagination. Romero's re-envisioning of the genre to an apocalyptic siege narrative rather than an icon of Haitian lore presented American audiences with a perfect outlet to embrace survivalist fantasies that hearken back to the nations birth on the frontier. It can be aligned alongside the plight of early settlers, as its characters find themselves displaced between a lost concept of society and the need to rebuild in a new, hostile environment. An environment which allows the return of iconic frontier figures like Daniel Boone, while redefining the role of the family to suit the needs of such an environment. It provides scenarios in which the nation can be regenerated through violence as the emergence of an antagonistic foe devoid of morality and consciousness must be met with extreme prejudice. It strips the antagonist of personality and thought, allowing audiences to return to an imperialistic conquest of a conquerable foe while eliminating any guilt associated with the act of colonization. In doing so, the genre glorifies the American past, allowing the reopening of the frontier in the zombie apocalypse as a method of escaping current cultural anxieties and romanticising concepts like the Indian hunter while stripping them of negative association. This thesis will suggest that the zombie has emerged as the ultimate American horror icon, and that it will continue to remain as such so long as there are instances of tumult and instability in the American cultural zeitgeist to which it can react.

This report offers analysis of two contemporary zombie apocalypse novels that imagine the future for the United States. By considering how Max Brooks’ World War Z and Colson Whitehead’s Zone One participate in critical conversations regarding postmodernity, this report reveals that these authors use the zombie apocalypse narrative to express concerns about social and cultural pathologies, as well as possibilities for utopian reform in the twenty-first century. By imagining the zombie horde as the radical other, the novels engage in discussions regarding racial and class inequalities in contemporary America. Ultimately, my analysis of these two texts reveals a disturbing tendency to imagine the zombie apocalypse as the solution to America’s persistent social and political dilemmas. / text

My research explores how the oft-maligned zombie genre reveals deep-seated American cultural tendencies drawn from the nation's history with colonization and imperialism. The zombie genre is a quintessentially American construct that has been flourishing in popular culture for nearly 60 years. Since George A. Romero first pioneered the genre with 1968's Night of the Living Dead, zombie narratives have demonstrated a persistent resilience in American culture to emerge as the ultimate American horror icon. First serving as a method to exploit and react to cultural anxieties in the 1960s, the zombie genre met the decade's tumultuous violence in international conflicts like the Vietnam War and domestic revolutions like the Civil Rights Movement. It adapted in the 1970s to expose a perceived excess in consumer culture before reflecting apocalyptic fears at the height of the Cold War in the 1980s. Following a period of rest in the relatively peaceful 1990s, the genre re-emerged in the early 2000s to reflect cultural anxieties spurred on by the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the subsequent resurgence of war those attacks inspired. Its ability to grow with American culture and reflect the relevant crises of the age in which each narrative is conceived suggests the genre can act as a barometer of cultural and social change and unrest. The zombie genre is ultimately an American construct as it is the only folkloric monster born of an American imagination. Romero's re-envisioning of the genre to an apocalyptic siege narrative rather than an icon of Haitian lore presented American audiences with a perfect outlet to embrace survivalist fantasies that hearken back to the nations birth on the frontier. It can be aligned alongside the plight of early settlers, as its characters find themselves displaced between a lost concept of society and the need to rebuild in a new, hostile environment. An environment which allows the return of iconic frontier figures like Daniel Boone, while redefining the role of the family to suit the needs of such an environment. It provides scenarios in which the nation can be regenerated through violence as the emergence of an antagonistic foe devoid of morality and consciousness must be met with extreme prejudice. It strips the antagonist of personality and thought, allowing audiences to return to an imperialistic conquest of a conquerable foe while eliminating any guilt associated with the act of colonization. In doing so, the genre glorifies the American past, allowing the reopening of the frontier in the zombie apocalypse as a method of escaping current cultural anxieties and romanticising concepts like the Indian hunter while stripping them of negative association. This thesis will suggest that the zombie has emerged as the ultimate American horror icon, and that it will continue to remain as such so long as there are instances of tumult and instability in the American cultural zeitgeist to which it can react.

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Thesis--Auburn University, 2008. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliography (p.112-137).

Horror films act as a barometer for society's tensions and anxieties, and the early years of the twenty-first century have seen a notable increase in such movies, the zombie narrative in particular. This "Zombie Renaissance" demonstrates increased dread concerning violent death--via terrorist attacks or contagious infection--and establishes the currency of a critical investigation into this oft-maligned subgenre. The zombie narrative has particular value to American cultural studies as the creature was born on the shores of the New World, rather than being co-opted from the Old, and it functions as a symbolic reminder of the atrocities of colonialism and slavery. Drawing on ethnographic studies of Haitian folklore, the voodoo-based zombie films of the 1930s and '40s do crucial cultural work in their own right, revealing deep-seated racist attitudes and imperialist paranoia, but the zombie invasion narrative established by George A. Romero has even greater singularity. Having no established literary analogue, Romero borrowed instead from voodoo mythology, vampire tales, and science fiction invasion narratives to develop a new tradition with Night of the Living Dead in 1968. His conception of a contagious, cannibalistic zombie horde uniquely manifests modern apprehensions about the horrors of Vietnam, the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, and, in the more recent films, the problems of excessive consumerism and the anxieties of both the Cold War and the current War on Terror. Essentially, zombies work as powerful metaphors for modern-day society and the prevailing cultural unease surrounding violent death and the loss of autonomous subjectivity, and, as recent production proves, the subgenre will continue to serve the viewing public as it grows, mutates, and evolves.

Ce mémoire de maîtrise en études françaises se penche sur la représentation de la figure du zombie au cinéma et au théâtre et s’interroge sur le fait que, malgré la popularité actuelle du monstre, peu de médiums autres que le septième art l’exploite avec efficacité. Le zombie serait-il donc une figure essentiellement filmique? La première partie du mémoire, Bunker, consiste en une courte pièce de théâtre en un acte. Prenant la forme d’un huis clos, la pièce met en scène six humains réfugiés dans un abri nucléaire, pour le meilleur et pour le pire, alors que leur univers est bouleversé par l’apparition d’un virus qui transforme les personnes atteintes en zombies cannibales. La seconde partie se concentre sur, d’une part, les origines du zombie filmique et, d’autre part, sur l’évolution de cette figure monstrueuse, appuyée par l’analyse de trois films issus de trois époques charnières pour la figure du zombie, soit White Zombie (1932) de Victor Halperin, Night of the Living Dead (1968) de George A. Romero et 28 Days Later (2002) de Danny Boyle. Le mémoire s’achève sur une réflexion sur ma propre création, laquelle se penchera principalement sur le processus d’intégration de la figure très filmique qu’est le zombie dans une pièce de théâtre.

The following thesis is concerned with the contemporary debate in the philosophy of mind surrounding the nature of phenomenal consciousness (viz. subjective experience, or qualia). My primary aim is to adjudicate the ongoing dialectic between dualists and physicalists regarding the ontological status of phenomenal consciousness — physical or nonphysical — by examining the two major arguments most commonly deployed against physicalism: namely, the zombie argument (Chalmers), and the knowledge argument (Jackson). I conclude by showing that once physicalism has been shorn of the various doctrines that it need not and ought not accept — that is, once we are clear about what, precisely, the fundamental doctrine of physicalism actually is — it becomes clear that these arguments do not go through, and that the case for dualism has not been made. I also argue that the task of actually disarming these arguments (in the right way) is potentially critically instructive to contemporary physicalists, as this helps to nourish a clearer overall understanding of what physicalism (properly understood) is, and is not, committed to. In Chapter One I lay the groundwork for the aforementioned anti-physicalist arguments by explaining precisely what is meant by the phrase “phenomenal consciousness” and its various synonyms. I then briefly summarize the mind-body problem and articulate the so-called “explanatory gap” therein. Chapter Two looks at the zombie argument (as articulated by David Chalmers, 1996) and finds that the argument itself, as stated, actually has very little to do with defending dualism against physicalism, but rather is ultimately an argument for epiphenomenalism — which, I argue, is untenable. Chapter Three examines Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument against physicalism (1982). Here I show why the argument itself fails to support property dualism, but also why the standard physicalist objections to it fail. I argue that Mary does indeed learn facts about the world upon her release, and that physicalists must face up to this squarely. I then suggest that physicalism (properly understood) is entirely compatible with this admission. Chapter Four examines a kind of rehabilitated version of the zombie argument in the context of a larger discussion about the relation between conceivability and possibility. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-18 13:18:41.928

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-54).

This thesis investigates the changing cinematic representations of a particular figure in horror culture: the Zombie. Current critical perspectives on the figure of the Zombie have yet to establish literary and cultural antecedents to the cinematic portrayal of the Zombie, preferring to position it as a mere product of American horror films of the 1930s. This study critiques this standpoint, arguing that global uses of the Zombie in differing media indicate a symbolic figure attuned to changing cultural contexts. The thesis therefore combines cultural and historical analysis with close textual readings of visual and written sources, paying close attention to the changing contexts of global film production and distribution. In order to present the cinematic Zombie as a product of historical, geographical and cultural shifts in horror film production, the thesis begins by critiquing existing accounts of Zombie film, drawing attention to the notion of generic canons of film as determined by both popular and academic film critics and draws attention to the fractured nature of genre as a method of positioning and critiquing film texts. In this, an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on the methods of cultural-historical and psycho-analytical critiques of horror film, is appraised and then applied to the texts under discussion. The first chapter positions a working thematic and visual deconstruction of the Zombie as an embodiment of the abject, positioning it as a result of changing cultural discussions in fiction on the nature of death and burial. This establishes a thematic framework to apply throughout the following chapters, noting alterations to representations. The second chapter offers a historicised account of appearances of the fictional Zombie before American cinematic productions of the 1930s, critiquing claims that this is the only original production context for the Zombie. The third chapter charts the changing production contexts of American Zombie film until the mid 1960s, to introduce the critiques of authorial importance placed upon the works of George A. Romero, which are discussed in Chapter 4. This critique in turn questions established notions of generic canon and international influence, which are discussed in Chapters 5 and 6. These chapters question the idea of American filmic product dominance in national contexts, charting the discussions of the Zombie body found in differing national cinemas. It is shown that dialogues of representation can be both nationally specific and meant for global audiences, brought about by the changing production and exhibition markets of the 1970s onwards. This in turn challenges the idea that the American model is the dominant representation in the contemporary Zombie film, discussed in Chapter 7. The thesis therefore charts three separate areas for discussion, that of historical, cultural and production contexts that can be held accountable for changing cinematic representations. Particular attention is placed on the thematic and visual use of the Zombie within differing media and firmly position cinematic representations as indicative of wider changes in popular media and their intended audiences. The thesis therefore offers a detailed historical and cultural taxonomy of Zombie film, furthering previous studies, but also presents a more detailed exploration of cultural contexts than previous critics have attempted.