Considering the amount of media created around the zombie and the sustained interest in its role in our society, we can clearly see that a cultural phenomenon is underway, and it is important for us to question this phenomenon in order to gain some understanding of how and why its appeal has stretched so far. The zombie is somehow enthralling, and it is my opinion that this is in part because the zombie is a study of what it means to be human in the postmodern world. My main purpose here is not to ask why zombies are popular or why people are enthralled by horror films of any kind. Instead I wish to investigate what zombies mean to us in our culture and society. A study of this culture offers invaluable insight into our own contemporary Western society and culture, as the zombie provides a physical form, embodying our fears and anxieties into something that is sharable and valuable to an increasing number of people. I examine the zombie's origins within the American Gothic tradition and explore its role as a barometer for social anxieties, focusing on issues of religion in the second chapter. I step away from the traditional view of zombie origins embedded in the Haitian voodoo practice of zombification and its implied post-colonial issues, and instead focused on the zombie as a Western European and American invention, looking at its folkloric and literary heritage. I also take a new perspective of the zombie and its relation to religion in order to explore the profound way the zombie genre can address contemporary concerns. I finish the study with a chapter devoted to a close reading of the film Shaun of the Dead in order to show how the zombie genre has shifted in tone and purpose in the new millennium. What I hope to accomplish in this study is to facilitate a new perspective of the zombie, its origins, its uses and its role in contemporary culture and society, and I hope to contribute in some small way a deeper understanding of where the zombie came from and what it means to us in the 21st century.

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TESTIMONIALS, a novella and other stories, is set within the Bay Area — deep in the districts long removed from the municipal budget — and delves into the lives of men, women, and adolescents longing for acknowledgment, reinvention, and peace amongst the many spirits, past and present. In ‘Yard Range,’ a woman finds a surrogate in her Senator’s child and wonders what it would take to change one man’s vote. ‘Body Known’ follows a masseuse treating clients whose bodies archive stories, songs, jokes, and confessions. In ‘Height Marks,’ an elder passes on survival tips to a nephew ostracized from the family. ‘Spirit Per Capita’ chronicles one woman's desperate search for the woman who changed her life. In ‘Autofiction,’ a man must negotiate the cruelest of requests: tell us a story. And in the novella ‘The Snow,’ a child and a night janitor navigate the worst summer camp in San Francisco, where strange messes happen overnight, and where words must be stolen. Utilizing first, second, and collective narrations, these stories explore lives not defined by victimhood or race but by irretrievable and fleeting choices, unforgivable compromises, and loyalty to one’s people and one’s self. Here, history doesn’t repeat: it echoes, couplets, and yearns for you.

Seeking vengeance for his mother’s murder, a young Native man becomes corrupted by a pelt that turns him into a bear at night.

After her adult son’s untimely death, a grieving mother seeks out a bride to die for so she can give him the perfect Chinese ghost wedding.

An alien from an emotionless species hides from her own kind on Earth by stealing the skin of a young woman, but when the alien starts to feel that woman’s emotions, she finds that human impersonation is more than skin deep.

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Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T18:11:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 28 / Bolsa para curso e programa de Pós Graduação / Realiza-se, neste trabalho, uma reflexão sobre uma experiência de sistematização do ensino de língua materna com base na proposta de aplicação de uma seqüência didática (Schneuwly e Dolz, 2004) que tem como foco um gênero de texto. Segue-se o Interacionismo Sociodiscursivo (Bronckart, 2005), que apresenta a idéia de que a apropriação de diversos gêneros textuais é fundamental no processo de inserção do indivíduo na prática social. Dessa forma, entende que o domínio de diferentes gêneros é necessário para que o usuário de uma língua participe, de forma ativa, na comunidade verbal na qual esteja inserido. O trabalho com a seqüência didática é uma perspectiva para desenvolver um gênero textual em uma situação de ensino-aprendizagem. Apresenta-se como um conjunto de atividades escolares organizadas sistematicamente e deve focar um gênero por vez. Neste caso, o gênero escolhido foi a narrativa de horror, desenvolvida junto a duas turmas de adolescentes da 7ª série, em uma escola particular e em uma escola estadual / It is held in this work, a reflection on the experience of a systematization of teaching in mother tongue based on the proposal for implementing a didactic sequence (Schneuwly and DOLZ, 2004) that focuses a genre of text. The following is the Interactionism Sociodiscursivo (Bronckart, 2005), which presents the idea that the ownership of various genres text is vital in the process of integration of the individual in social practice. Thus, believes that mastery of different genres is necessary so that the user of a language involved, so active in the community in which word is inserted. The work is didactic sequence with a view to developing a textual genre in a situation of teaching and learning. It is presented as a series of educational activities organized systematically and should focus on a genre at a time. In this case, the narrative was the chosen genre of horror, carried out in two classes of teenagers in 7th grade of elementary school, in a private school and in a state school. The comparison between