Zombies: An Unnatural History

1. Zombies: An Unnatural History

2. Monsters • Cultural construction • Embodiment of culturally/historically specific fears • The role of the Enlightenment

3. Apocalypse • Book of Revelation • Medieval and early modern Anti-Christ narratives • Modern apocalypse

4. Zombies: Embodiment • Can the zombie be seen as a representation of what the human really is?

5. How many hours are in a day when you don't spend half of them watching television? When is the last time any of us really worked to get something that we wanted? How long has it been since any of us really needed something that we wanted? The world we knew is gone. The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility. An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months society has crumbled, no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. In a world ruled by the dead we are forced to finally start living. (Walking Dead Compendium, back cover)

6. Historical contexts • World War II: Holocaust and Hiroshima/Nagasaki • Muselmänner and hibakusha (Muntean)

7. What does the Zombie represent? • Slavery and Oppression? • Late capitalism? • Questions of subjectivity and embodiment?

8. Early Literature • Near Eastern resurrection legend • Arabian Nights (“History of Gherib and his Brother Agib”)

9. Early Literature • Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818

10. Early Literature • Edgar Allen Poe, “Ligeia” (1838)

11. Early Literature • Edgar Allen Poe, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (1845) • Ambrose Bierce, “The Death of Halpin Frayser” (1893)

12. Early Literature • August Derleth, “The House of Magnolias” story of zombie slave revolt on a U.S. Southern plantation, June 1932

13. 1930s • Horror films: • The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) • The Golem (1920)

15. Boris Karloff in The Mummy (1932)

16. Karloff, The Ghoul (1933)

17. Karloff, The Walking Dead (1937)

18. Karloff, Frankenstein (1931)

19. White Zombie (1932) • Dir. Victor Halperin • First film to figure zombies • Bela Lugosi as Murder Legendre

20. Matheson, I am Legend (1954)

21. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

22. The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

23. Romero, Night of the Living Dead (1968)

24. Romero

25. Italian/Euro Zombie cinema

26. Thriller (1983)

27. Raimi, Evil Dead franchise

28. 28 Days Later (2002)

29. Video games

30. Graphic novels

31. Zombie remakes

32. Rammbock 2010

33. Genre

34. Genre

35. Genre

36. “Zombiegate” (2011)

37. Zombis and Zombies • Zombi: singular, created by a single master, connected to slavery and imperialism • Zombie: “evil, contagious and plural”, connected to capitalism and consumerism

38. Haitian Revolution • 1791 Rebellion breaks out in French colony of Saint-Domingue located on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola • Revolution from 1791-1804

39. Haiti Pre-Revolution • Island of Hispaniola • “discovered” by Columbus, 1492 • Sugar cane production begun in 1493 • Indigenous population: est. 500-750K in 1492 to 29K in 1514

40. Saint-Domingue • Became the French colony of Saint-Domingue • French presence began in 1659

41. Haiti pre-Revolution • On eve of revolution was the world’s leading producer of coffee and sugar • Brutal working conditions with high mortality rates

42. Haiti pre-Revolution • Estimated 850,000 to 1 million slaves brought to St. Domingue • 5 to 6 of slaves died yearly • Child mortality was 50% • Laws concerning slaves encoded in the Code Noir of 1685

43. Some Sources on Haiti

44. Haitian revolution and the U.S. • Many planters went to New Orleans • Brought with them Haitian beliefs: Vodou, based on spiritual beliefs and practices from W. and Central Africa • These mixed with spirituality from American slaves, Native Americans to become Voodoo, which both those of African and American descent began to practice

45. Zombie etymology • French ombres (shadows)? • Bonda word zumbi to Haiti through Portuguese slave traders? • Name for a non-American slave revolt? • Attributed as the name of a leader in the Haitian revolution?

46. The Zombie • The Haitian zombie can take various forms • Soul stolen from a living person to bring luck or heal illness • Dead person who has willing given his/her body to the Voudou gods • Reanimated corpse controlled by master who resurrects it

47. Zombie/Zombi • Haitian zombie did not travel over with Voudou • Entered through 19th c. stories as the zombi and then more broadly in the 1930s • 19th c. versions were a type of spirit

48. Zombi stories • “The Unknown Painter” reprint from Chamber’s Edinburgh Review in Ohio newspaper, The Alton Telegraph, 1838 • “Last of the Caribs: A Romance of Martinique”Decatur Illinois Daily Review, 1879

49. Zombi • Zombi was given as the name of a heroic leader in a slave revolt in Brazil as described in “Extracts from the Modern Traveller” in May 1845 in the American Freeman, a magazine for free African Americans and abolitionists

50. Zombis—Haitian Revolution • Zombi myth has clear connections to slavery • Insurgent battle cry reputed as: “We have no mother, no child; What is death?” • Slavery as “social death” (Patterson) • Some see the Zombi as a metaphor of Haiti itself: a successful slave revolt that has led to a sad national history