Zombies in Western Culture
Why has the zombie become such a pervasive figure in twenty-first-century popular culture? John Vervaeke, Christopher Mastropietro and Filip Miscevic seek to answer this question by arguing that particular aspects of the zombie, common to a variety of media forms, reflect a crisis in modern Western...
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ftopenedition:oai:books.openedition.org:obp/4255 2023-05-15T13:28:57+02:00 Zombies in Western Culture Vervaeke, John Mastropietro, Christopher Miscevic, Filip 2018-01-31 http://books.openedition.org/obp/4255 en eng Open Book Publishers http://books.openedition.org/obp/4255 urn:eisbn:9782821897311 urn:isbn:9781783743285 CC BY 3.0 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess CC-BY Western culture apocalypse popular culture media studies alienation zombies crisis of meaning cultural studies SOC022000 JFCA info:eu-repo/semantics/book book 2018 ftopenedition 2018-02-04T01:07:05Z Why has the zombie become such a pervasive figure in twenty-first-century popular culture? John Vervaeke, Christopher Mastropietro and Filip Miscevic seek to answer this question by arguing that particular aspects of the zombie, common to a variety of media forms, reflect a crisis in modern Western culture. The authors examine the essential features of the zombie, including mindlessness, ugliness and homelessness, and argue that these reflect the outlook of the contemporary West and its attendant zeitgeists of anxiety, alienation, disconnection and disenfranchisement. They trace the relationship between zombies and the theme of secular apocalypse, demonstrating that the zombie draws its power from being a perversion of the Christian mythos of death and resurrection. Symbolic of a lost Christian worldview, the zombie represents a world that can no longer explain itself, nor provide us with instructions for how to live within it. The concept of “domicide” or the destruction of home is developed to describe the modern crisis of meaning that the zombie both represents and reflects. This is illustrated using case studies including the relocation of the Anishinaabe of the Grassy Narrows First Nation, and the upheaval of population displacement in the Hellenistic period. Finally, the authors invoke and reformulate symbols of the four horseman of the apocalypse as rhetorical analogues to frame those aspects of contemporary collapse that elucidate the horror of the zombie. Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis is required reading for anyone interested in the phenomenon of zombies in contemporary culture. It will also be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience including students and scholars of culture studies, semiotics, philosophy, religious studies, eschatology, anthropology, Jungian studies, and sociology. Book anishina* OpenEdition |
institution |
Open Polar |
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OpenEdition |
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ftopenedition |
language |
English |
topic |
Western culture apocalypse popular culture media studies alienation zombies crisis of meaning cultural studies SOC022000 JFCA |
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Western culture apocalypse popular culture media studies alienation zombies crisis of meaning cultural studies SOC022000 JFCA Vervaeke, John Mastropietro, Christopher Miscevic, Filip Zombies in Western Culture |
topic_facet |
Western culture apocalypse popular culture media studies alienation zombies crisis of meaning cultural studies SOC022000 JFCA |
description |
Why has the zombie become such a pervasive figure in twenty-first-century popular culture? John Vervaeke, Christopher Mastropietro and Filip Miscevic seek to answer this question by arguing that particular aspects of the zombie, common to a variety of media forms, reflect a crisis in modern Western culture. The authors examine the essential features of the zombie, including mindlessness, ugliness and homelessness, and argue that these reflect the outlook of the contemporary West and its attendant zeitgeists of anxiety, alienation, disconnection and disenfranchisement. They trace the relationship between zombies and the theme of secular apocalypse, demonstrating that the zombie draws its power from being a perversion of the Christian mythos of death and resurrection. Symbolic of a lost Christian worldview, the zombie represents a world that can no longer explain itself, nor provide us with instructions for how to live within it. The concept of “domicide” or the destruction of home is developed to describe the modern crisis of meaning that the zombie both represents and reflects. This is illustrated using case studies including the relocation of the Anishinaabe of the Grassy Narrows First Nation, and the upheaval of population displacement in the Hellenistic period. Finally, the authors invoke and reformulate symbols of the four horseman of the apocalypse as rhetorical analogues to frame those aspects of contemporary collapse that elucidate the horror of the zombie. Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis is required reading for anyone interested in the phenomenon of zombies in contemporary culture. It will also be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience including students and scholars of culture studies, semiotics, philosophy, religious studies, eschatology, anthropology, Jungian studies, and sociology. |
format |
Book |
author |
Vervaeke, John Mastropietro, Christopher Miscevic, Filip |
author_facet |
Vervaeke, John Mastropietro, Christopher Miscevic, Filip |
author_sort |
Vervaeke, John |
title |
Zombies in Western Culture |
title_short |
Zombies in Western Culture |
title_full |
Zombies in Western Culture |
title_fullStr |
Zombies in Western Culture |
title_full_unstemmed |
Zombies in Western Culture |
title_sort |
zombies in western culture |
publisher |
Open Book Publishers |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://books.openedition.org/obp/4255 |
genre |
anishina* |
genre_facet |
anishina* |
op_relation |
http://books.openedition.org/obp/4255 urn:eisbn:9782821897311 urn:isbn:9781783743285 |
op_rights |
CC BY 3.0 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
_version_ |
1765997476465082368 |