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Zombie Talk: Culture, History, Politics
Zombie Talk offers a concise, interdisciplinary introduction and deep analytical set of theoretical approaches to help readers understand the phenomenon of zombies in contemporary and modern culture. With essays that combine Humanities and Social Science methodologies, the authors examine the zombie through an array of cultural products from different periods and geographical films ranging from White Zombie (1932) to the pioneering films of George Romero, television shows like AMC's The Walking Dead, to literary offerings such as Richard Matheson's I am Legend (1954) and Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride, Prejudice and Zombies (2009), among others.
- GenresNonfiction
139 pages, Hardcover
First published December 16, 2015
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About the author
John Edgar Browning
35 books14 followersA recognized international authority on the horror genre, vampires, and Monster Theory, John Edgar Browning (Ph.D., SUNY-Buffalo) has appeared as an expert guest on documentary TV and radio programs like National Geographic's Taboo USA (2013), Discovery Channel's William Shatner's Weird or What? (2010), AMC Visionaries: Eli Roth's History of Horror (2018), Ripley's Believe It or Notcast (2019), BBC Radio, and History Channel's The UnXplained (2020) hosted by William Shatner. A university educator for the last 15 years, he is now Professor of Liberal Arts at the Savannah College of Art and Design (Atlanta campus).
Browning has contracted or published seventeen academic and popular trade books and over 80 articles, chapters, and reviews on subjects that cluster around Cultural Studies, critical media literacy, Dracula, vampires, zombies, horror, monstrosity, Bram Stoker, and the Gothic. His research and scholarship have earned him international respect from his peers, as well as media coverage from over 150 news outlets in over 40 countries, including venues like the BBC and BBC Radio, The Washington Post, El Huffington Post (Spain), TIME, Variety, VICE (Broadly), Hack Circus, Discover Magazine’s “It's Only Science” podcast, New York Daily News, The Guardian (US Edition), Fusion, ABC News (Australia), The Daily Telegraph (Australia), Smithsonian.com, The Indian Express, Medical Daily, The Express Tribune (Pakistan), Louisiana Cultural Vistas (Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities), VT. (Viral Thread), Live Science, Bloody Disgusting, and many others.
Browning has contracted or published seventeen academic and popular trade books and over 80 articles, chapters, and reviews on subjects that cluster around Cultural Studies, critical media literacy, Dracula, vampires, zombies, horror, monstrosity, Bram Stoker, and the Gothic. His research and scholarship have earned him international respect from his peers, as well as media coverage from over 150 news outlets in over 40 countries, including venues like the BBC and BBC Radio, The Washington Post, El Huffington Post (Spain), TIME, Variety, VICE (Broadly), Hack Circus, Discover Magazine’s “It's Only Science” podcast, New York Daily News, The Guardian (US Edition), Fusion, ABC News (Australia), The Daily Telegraph (Australia), Smithsonian.com, The Indian Express, Medical Daily, The Express Tribune (Pakistan), Louisiana Cultural Vistas (Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities), VT. (Viral Thread), Live Science, Bloody Disgusting, and many others.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 20, 2022
Absolutely outstanding. Zombie Studies is - appropriately - an uneven and indeed shambling field.
It is dominated by textual analyses that attempt generalizability and commentary on the 'human condition' or - indeed - September 11. Which in Zombie Studies is (too often) synonymous.
Zombie Talk is the best book I have read on zombies. It takes on capitalism and does the tough theoretical work to explore what hell is going on with the zombie focus.
Written by four scholars - Castillo, Schmid, Reilly and Browning - the chapters align with rigour and skill. The arc of the argument is effective, with the last chapter and conclusion moving to a post-zombie apocalypse.
David Schmid revealed a powerful argument about zombies as "monsters for a neoliberal age." He stated, "the instantaneous visual impression made by the zombies that throng popular culture hides the fact that the true monsters of neoliberalism – psychopaths – hide in plain sight by means of their bland normality."
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
We want to see the bad guys, the toxic, the threat running towards us. Instead we live with, work with, work for, and naturalize psychopaths. The zombies are already here. They are us.
Put another way, and quoting William Egginton's "Afterword": “we believe we are alive, real, autonomous, but in reality we are already dead, plugged into the relentless machine of capital hell-bent on our destruction ... maybe that’s the real meaning of undead – already dead, but just alive enough not to realize it”
Published in 2016, the COVID-19 pandemic was not in their vista. But hell - this book has nailed how we got here and - maybe - what happens next.
It is dominated by textual analyses that attempt generalizability and commentary on the 'human condition' or - indeed - September 11. Which in Zombie Studies is (too often) synonymous.
Zombie Talk is the best book I have read on zombies. It takes on capitalism and does the tough theoretical work to explore what hell is going on with the zombie focus.
Written by four scholars - Castillo, Schmid, Reilly and Browning - the chapters align with rigour and skill. The arc of the argument is effective, with the last chapter and conclusion moving to a post-zombie apocalypse.
David Schmid revealed a powerful argument about zombies as "monsters for a neoliberal age." He stated, "the instantaneous visual impression made by the zombies that throng popular culture hides the fact that the true monsters of neoliberalism – psychopaths – hide in plain sight by means of their bland normality."
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
We want to see the bad guys, the toxic, the threat running towards us. Instead we live with, work with, work for, and naturalize psychopaths. The zombies are already here. They are us.
Put another way, and quoting William Egginton's "Afterword": “we believe we are alive, real, autonomous, but in reality we are already dead, plugged into the relentless machine of capital hell-bent on our destruction ... maybe that’s the real meaning of undead – already dead, but just alive enough not to realize it”
Published in 2016, the COVID-19 pandemic was not in their vista. But hell - this book has nailed how we got here and - maybe - what happens next.
Displaying 1 of 1 review