Research Catalog

Title

Not your average zombie : rehumanizing the undead from voodoo to zombie walks / Chera Kee.

Author

Kee, Chera

Publication

• Austin, TX : University of Texas Press, 2017.
• ©2017

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 224 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"The zombie apocalypse hasn't happened - yet - but zombies are all over popular culture. From movies and TV shows to video games and zombie walks, the undead stalk through our collective fantasies. What is it about zombies that exerts such a powerful fascination? In Not Your Average Zombie, Chera Kee offers an innovative answer by looking at zombies that don't conform to the stereotypes of mindless slaves or flesh-eating cannibals. Zombies who think, who speak, and who feel love can be sympathetic and even politically powerful, she asserts. Kee analyzes zombies in popular culture from 1930s depictions of zombies in voodoo rituals to contemporary film and television, comic books, video games, and fan practices such as zombie walks. She discusses how the zombie has embodied our fears of losing the self through slavery and cannibalism and shows how 'extra-ordinary' zombies defy that loss of free will by refusing to be dehumanized. By challenging their masters, falling in love, and leading rebellions, 'extra-ordinary' zombies become figures of liberation and resistance. Kee also thoroughly investigates how representations of racial and gendered identities in zombie texts offer opportunities for living people to gain agency over their lives. Not Your Average Zombie thus deepens and broadens our understanding of how media producers and consumers take up and use these undead figures to make political interventions in the world of the living."--Provided by publisher.

Subject

• Zombies > History > Social aspects
• Zombies > Psychological aspects
• Zombies in motion pictures
• Zombies in literature
• Zombies in popular culture
• Humanity
• Human beings

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 177-207) and index.

Contents

Introduction. From the zombi to the zombie : the extra-ordinary undead -- Part I. Zombie identities. From cannibals to dead men working in the cane fields : Haiti, vodou, and early zombie films -- Racialized and raceless : race after death and zombie revolution -- "You can't hurt me, You can't destroy me, You can't control me" : white women in zombie films -- A proud and powerful line : women of color and voodoo -- Part II. Playing the Zombie. "Be safe, Have fun, Eat brains" : playing the zombie in video games -- I walked with a zombie : performing the living dead -- Conclusion. "I think I'm dead."

Call Number

JFE 18-3774

ISBN

• 9781477313176
• 1477313176
• 9781477313305
• 1477313303

LCCN

2016043282

OCLC

959922647

Author

Kee, Chera, author.

Title

Not your average zombie : rehumanizing the undead from voodoo to zombie walks / Chera Kee.

Publisher

Austin, TX : University of Texas Press, 2017.

Copyright Date

©2017

Edition

First edition.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 177-207) and index.

Sudoc No.

Z UA380.8 K24no txdocs

Research Call Number

JFE 18-3774