Course Outline

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Wall Street Journal article about zombies in academia:

 http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/03/04/feed-your-brain-with-brains-six-real-zombie-college-classes/

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HUM 240


Note: Dates and assignments may be subject to change.
Please bring assigned text(s) to class.
Readings should be completed before the dates indicated below.


Pursuant to the character of the genre, some of the course material is graphic in nature.

WEEK 1:          
(W) 9/7               
Introduction

WEEK 2:          
(W) 9/14             
Zombiemania: Media, Popular Culture and Zombies
Read - American Zombie Gothic – “Introduction: The Zombie Film and its Cycles (9-36)
Generation Zombie: “Introduction: Generation Z, The Age of Apocalypse” (1-17)

WEEK 3:          
(W) 9/21             
The Voodoo Zombie

View - White Zombie (1932)
Read: American Zombie Gothic: “Raising the Living Dead: The Folkloric and 
Ideological Origins of the Voodoo Zombie” (37-63), “The Return of the 
Native: Imperialist Hegemony and the Cinematic Voodoo Zombie” (64-81)

                                      

                                      

WEEK 4:          
(W) 9/28             
The Zombie as Social Commentary

Read - Generation Zombie: “Zombies as Internal Fear or Threat” (18-26)
 I Am Legend (1954) – Richard Matheson

 Journal #1: White Zombie

WEEK 5:          
(W) 10/5             
George Romero I

View - Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Read - American Zombie Gothic: “The Rise of the New Paradigm: Night of the 
Living Dead and the Zombie Invasion Narrative” (94-128)
Generation Zombie: “Lost Bodies/Lost Souls: Night of the Living Dead . . . as 
Vietnam Narrative” (67-76)

                                                                    

                                      

WEEK 6:          
(W) 10/12           
George Romero II

View - Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Read - American Zombie Gothic: “The Dead Walk the Earth: The Triumph of 
the Zombie Social Metaphor in Dawn of the Dead” (129-157)
Journal #2: Night of the Living Dead

WEEK 7:          
(W) 10/19          
George Romero III

View - Day of the Dead (1985)
Read - American Zombie Gothic: “Humanizing the Zombie Via Cinematic Suture“ 
(166-174), “The Pathetic Dead of Day of The Dead” (174-180)
Generation Zombie – “Shambling Towards Mount Improbable to be Born: American 
Evolutionary Anxiety and The Hopeful Monsters of Matheson’s I Am Legend and 
Romero’s Dead Films” (77-89)
Journal #3: Dawn of the Dead

WEEK 8:          
(W) 10/26           
The Romero Zombie Legacy
Read - Generation Zombie: “Ztopia: Lessons in Post-Vital Politics in George 
Romero’s Zombie Films” (90-94),”The National Strategy for Zombie Containment :
 Myth Meets Activism in Post 9/11 America” (231-247)
Journal #4: Day of the Dead

WEEK 9:          
(W) 11/2            
The Zombie in Other Media: Pop Music, Video Gaming, and Internet

 View - “Thriller” (1983)
Read - Generation Zombie “The E-Dead: Zombies in the Digital Age” (194-205)
Journal #5: Romero’s Zombie Legacy

WEEK 10:        
(W) 11/9             
The Zombie Re-imagined

View -  28 Days Later (2002)
Read - Generation Zombie: “Zombies in a ‘Deep, Dark Ocean of History’: 
Danny Boyle’s Infected . . . as Metaphors of Postwar Britain” (165-181)
Journal #6: The Zombie in Other Media

                                                                                                           

WEEK 11:        
(W) 11/16           
Laughing at the Zombie

View -Shaun of The Dead (2004)
Read - American Zombie Gothic:  Section on Shaun of the Dead (189-190)
Generation Zombie: “Mass Psychology and the Analysis of the Zombie: 
From Suggestion to Contagion” (113-129)
Journal #7: 28 Days Later

WEEK 12:        
(W) 11/23           
Thanksgiving Recess – No Classes

WEEK 13:        
(W) 11/30           
Zombie as”Ism”

View - American Zombie (2007)
Read - Generation Zombie: “Gray is the New Black: Race, Class, and Zombies” 
(130)
Journal #8: Shaun of the Dead

                                        

WEEK 14:        
(W) 12/7             
Zombies on The New York Times Best Sellers Fiction List

Skim - The Zombie Survival Guide (2003)

Read: World War Z (2007)
Journal #9: American Zombie

WEEK 15:        
(W) 12/14           
The Merging of Zombie Graphic Novel and Television

Read - The Walking Dead (Vol. 1 2006)

View - The Walking Dead TV Premier Episode (2010)

Journal #10: The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z

                                      

FINAL EXAM &

Journal #11: The Walking Dead:

Wednesday, 12/21/16

Final Course Project:

Due On or BEFORE Wednesday, 12/21/16

(early submissions encouraged)