Theorising the Contemporary Zombie , livre ebook

THEORISING THE
CONTEMPORARYZombieTHEORISING THE
HORROR STUDIES CONTEMPORARY
Series Editor
Xavier Aldana Reyes, Manchester Metropolitan University Zombie
Editorial Board
Stacey Abbott, Roehampton University
Linnie Blake, Manchester Metropolitan University
Harry M. Benshof, University of North Texas
Fred Botting, Kingston University
Steven Bruhm, Western University
Stefen Hantke, Sogang University
Joan Hawkins, Indiana University
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Deakin University
Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet, University of Lausanne
EDITED BY SCOTT ERIC HAMILTON Bernice M. Murphy, Trinity College Dublin
Johnny Walker, Northumbria University AND CONOR HEFFERNAN
Maisha Wester, Indiana University Bloomington
Preface
Horror Studies is the frst book series exclusively dedicated to the study
of the genre in its various manifestations – from fction to cinema and
television, magazines to comics, and extending to other forms of narrative
texts such as video games and music. Horror Studies aims to raise the profle
of Horror and to further its academic institutionalisation by providing a
publishing home for cutting-edge research. As an exciting new venture
within the established Cultural Studies and Literary Criticism programme,
Horror Studies will expand the feld in innovative and student-friendly ways.
UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS
2022THEORISING THE
CONTEMPORARYZombie
CONTEXTUAL PASTS, PRESENTS,
AND FUTURES
EDITED BY SCOTT ERIC HAMILTON
AND CONOR HEFFERNAN
UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS
2022© Te Contributors, 2022
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form
(including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and
whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication)
without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with
the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. Applications for the
copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication
should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, University Registry, King
Edward VII Avenue, Cardif, CF10 3NS.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-78683-857-5
eISBN 978-1-78683-858-2
Te rights of Te Contributors to be identifed as authors of this work have been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
Typeset by Chris Bell, cbdesign
Printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Melksham, United KingdomContents
Abstract viiAuthor Biographies ixList of Figures xiii
Introduction1
Scott Eric Hamilton and Conor Hefernan
Part One: Zombifed Bodies 17
1. Zombies, Deviance and the Right to Posthuman Life 19
Poppy Wilde
2. Te Apocalypse Workout
Health, Identity and Zombies 39
Conor Hefernan
3. Abject Bodies and Borders
What Zombies and Porn Indicate about Sex,
Stigma and Society 59
Caroline West
4. Aloha ‘Oe
Goodbye and Hello in Train to Busan (2016) 79
Harvey O’Brien
Part Two: Critical Environments 101
5. Te Stalking Dead
Ireland’s Ambiguous Revenants and the Case for
a Folk-zombie Revival 103
Jack Fennell 6. M. R. Carey’s Te Boy on the Bridge
Ethics and the Apocalypse 119
Scott Eric Hamilton
7. Zombie Colony
Te Heteronomy of the Greek State and the Datura
of Cultural Capital 139
Konstantinos Kerasovitis
8. Last Ones Left Alive
Zombies and Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland 159
Deirdre Flynn
Part Tree: Undead Cultures 177
9. Beware the Zuvembies
Comics, Censorship and the Ubiquity of Not-quite Zombies 179
Chera Kee
10. Cinematic Voodoo and the Reanimation of Death
Jacques Tourneur’s I Walked with a Zombie 197
Peter J. Wright
11. ‘Violence is Italian art’
Art and Adaptation in Lucio Fulci’s ‘Gates of Hell’ Trilogy 213
Miranda Corcoran
12. Surviving the Shambling Signifeds
Zombies, Language and Chaos 231
Andrew Ferguson
Bibliography 247
Index 273Abstract
OMBIES HAVE BECOME an increasingly popular object of Zresearch in academic studies and, of course, in popular media. In the
past decade zombies have been employed to explain mathematical
equations, vortex phenomena in astrophysics, the need for improved laws,
issues within higher education, and even the structure of human
societies, to identify only a few examples. Tis collection expands on
previous volumes and marries new topics with older approaches. Refective of
the diversity of Teorising Zombiism(s), the collection ofers several new
roads of enquiry related to the physical body, posthumanism, the
environment and pornography among other topics. Likewise, more traditional
areas of research, like zombies and the economy, the flms of Lucio Fulci,
politics and language are approached through the use of new theoretical
frameworks and/or materials. Understanding and defning zombiism as
a means of theorising and examining various issues of society within any
given era by immersing those social issues within the destabilising context
of apocalyptic crisis, this collection studies a series of diferent contexts
and mediums. Writing pages:Layout 1 23/6/09 13:39 Page 291Author Biographies
Miranda Corcoran is a lecturer in twenty-frst-century literature at Univer -
sity College Cork. Her research interests include Cold War literature, genre
fction, popular fction, sci-f, horror and the gothic. She is currently writing
a monograph on adolescence and witchcraft in American popular culture.
She is also the co-editor (with Steve Gronert Ellerhof) of Exploring the
Horror of Supernatural Fiction: Ray Bradbury’s Elliott Family (Routledge, 2020).
Jack Fennell is a writer, editor, translator and researcher whose academic
publications include pieces on science fction, utopian and dystopian liter -
ature, monsters, Irish literature and the legal philosophy of comic books.
He is the author of Irish Science Fiction (Liverpool University Press, 2014),
a contributing translator for Te Short Fiction of Flann O’Brien (Dalkey
Archive Press, 2013) and a former visiting fellow at the Moore Institute
in NUI Galway.
Andrew Ferguson is a College Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of
Virginia. He works at the intersection of media-textual studies, cultural
theory and popular culture, which results in him doing things like
willingly signing up to write an article that will require watching Te Star Wars
Holiday Special several times. Other ongoing projects include a study on
editorial labour and style in science fction, essays on born-digital horror
and the writings of Dr Chuck Tingle, and a manuscript on glitches and
narrative theory.x Author Biographies•
Dr Deirdre Flynn is a lecturer in twenty-frst-century literature at Mary
Immaculate College, Limerick. She has worked at University College
Dublin, NUI Galway and University of Limerick. Her research interests
include world literature, literary urban studies, postmodernism, Haruki
Murakami, Irish studies, theatre and feminism. She has written, directed
and acted for theatre, and worked as a journalist for over seven years. She is
currently preparing a monograph on Haruki Murakami and has published
two co-edited collections on Irish literature. From 2015 until 2017, she
was the chair of Sibéal, the gender and feminist network.
Scott Eric Hamilton is a former research associate at the University
College Dublin Humanities Institute. Hamilton has published in various
journals on Samuel Beckett and other topics. He has co-organised a
successful series of international conferences entitled ‘Beckett and the “State”
of Ireland’ (2001–13), ‘Palimpsests: V International Flann O’Brien
Conference’ (2019) and ‘Teorizing Zombiism’ (2019). He has co-edited a
volume of essays from both the ‘Teorizing Zombiism’ conference and
the ‘Flann O’Brien’ conference as well as guest edited a special issue of Te
Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies.
Conor Hefernan is a lecturer in the sociology of sport at the University of
Ulster. He has published widely on the history of ftness and exercise in the
nineteenth and twentieth century. In 2020, Conor published Te History
of Physical Culture in Ireland with Palgrave MacMillan.

Chera Kee is an associate professor of flm and media studies in the
Department of English at Wayne State University. Her essays on zombies
have been published in the Journal of Popular Film and Television and the
edited volume Better Of Dead: Te Evolution of the Zombie as Post-Human
(Fordham University Press, 2011).
Konstantinos Kerasovitis is a researcher with Wolverhampton University,
working towards his PhD in the crux of labour, afect and critical theory.
Harvey O’Brien is currently head of flm studies at University College
Dublin. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters relating
to flm, and is a frequent contributor to Irish radio on the subject. He
has also authored Action Movies: Te Cinema of Striking Back
(Columbia University Press, 2012), Te Real Ireland: Te Evolution of Ireland in Author Biographies xi•
Documentary Film (Manchester University Press, 2004) and co-edited
Keeping it Real: Irish Film and Television (Wallfower, 2004).
Caroline West is a lecturer, writer, media commentator, sexpert and
podcast host. She qualifed with her doctoral degree from Dublin City
University. Her research interests focuses on sex, feminism and the body.
Aside from academia, Dr West is an active contributor to Irish media on
sexual health.
Poppy Wilde is a lecturer in media and communication at Birmingham
City University. Her research interests include posthumanism and
posthuman subjectivity, digital cultures, game studies, embodiment, performance
in online contexts and the lived experience in research methods. More
recently her explorations have turned to posthuman conceptions of death,
and zombifcation.
Peter J. Wright is a doctoral student at the Univ