Synchronicity

As in: The Living Dead

So I've got zombies on my mind a lot, given that I'm finishing up the syllabus for my j-session zombie course to turn in, well, as soon as possible. On my way home from dropping off a friend at the el, I walked down my deserted suburban street at around 9pm. The air was moist and a little misty from the recent rains, and the glow of the orange streetlights filled the air in the way only those lights can. As I walked the two blocks, I couldn't help but ponder the poor defense my street offered against zombie hordes. Then, not two hours later, iTunes shuffles "The Man Comes Around" into my ears.

"And behold, a pale horse, and the name of him that sat on him was Death, and hell followed with him."

Gives me the heebie jeebies.

Know your audience

As in: Teaching , The Living Dead

In an elevator yesterday, I forgot this primary rule of communication. I was chatting with our associate dean about the j-session course I plan to teach this coming January, Understanding Zombies. Here's what I should have said:

I'm planning to propose a media and cultural studies course focused on the horror figure of the zombie. Students will watch films, read comics and stories, read some critical theory, and produce projects in the last week. I'm calling it Understanding Zombies.

Here's what I said:

I'm planning a course for J-session. It's called Understanding Zombies!

Horrified blank stare. The associate dean then mentioned that someone last year tried to propose a one-credit course in "doing your taxes". I spent the rest of the elevator ride assuring him that it would be far more rigorous than the tax class. D'oh.

Now there's an idea!

As in: Media , Science Fiction , The Living Dead

Enterprising screenwriters take note: premise for a zombie movie:

But university officials say all that's not true. They had no role in acquiring the bodies, they're receiving no money. In fact, they never heard of this body show until contacted by the I-Team. We've learned that Perner was able to get bodies meant for medical research and teaching from a factory in Nanjing, China. It worries San Francisco supervisors that these bodies are now on display on Nob Hill. (link)

Given the American tendency (if subconscious) toward racism and xenophobia, the idea of bodies from another country (particularly China, echoing the subtle strain of "yellow menace" we've been hearing in the media of late) "destined for medical research" being used in this sort of exhibit seems the perfect audience-appeal conceit for the release of a government funded T-virus or Z virus. The bodies, infected with this nasty experimental virus, are stolen and improperly plasticized by unscrupulous museum exhibitors. Dripping, infecting, and zombie-based chaos ensues. Audiences flock to the theater.

Zombie Text list

As in: The Living Dead

I'm kicking around a class about zombies. Perhaps a J-term for 2007 or a proposed special-topics course. Here begins the list of things I might use.

• Films: Dawn of the Dead (both), Shaun of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Carnival of Souls, The Hills Have Eyes, Dead Alive, Evil Dead, The Beyond, Resident Evil
• Films I haven't seen yet: House of 1000 Corpses, Resident Evil Apocalypse, Cemetary Man
• Comics: E.C. comics from the 50s, Dawn of the Dead (Niles' adaptation), Lenore
• Games: Resident Evil series, Stubbs the Zombie, Zombies!!! (the boardgame)
• Books: The Serpent and the Rainbow, The Zombie Survival Guide

The big question is whether this would be a traditional cultural studies class, or whether I can find a heuretic method to engage with Zombies. On one hand, the appeal of teaching a cultural studies class that approaches Zombie texts from a variety of theoretical positions appeals to me. On the other, I find experimental classes most interesting and challenging. So, perhaps I can learn from Writing About Cool—look at many different aspects of zombie-ness to see what we can learn about writing about zombies. Another approach: zombies emerge as primary figures in horror with Night of the Living Dead; perhaps 1968 is the answer to the question of why zombies?

It has been a pet theory of mine that the emergence of "fast zombies" in 28 Days Later and Dawn of the Dead signifies a cultural response to the speed of the digital age. If Night of the Living Dead worried about our zombification, the new films use the trope of a (computer) virus to suggest that the numbing process is signficantly shorter than we'd first thought.