Welcome to ENGL 1102 "Apocalyptic Nightmares of the Living Dead: The Cultural Politics of Zombies in Popular Media"

Spring 2009

Instructor: Dr. Andrea Wood

andrea.wood@lcc.gatech.edu

Office: 303 Skiles

Office Hours:  MWF 2:05-2:55 or by appointment

Class Meeting Times/Locations: MWF (P3 1:05-1:55/E1 3:05-3:55/M 4:05-4:55)/All classes meet in 308 Skiles

Course Description

This section of 1102 will examine how apocalyptic themes in zombie films, popular fiction, and comics inform conceptualizations of futurity and survival in a terrifying time and place. In particular, we will consider the ways in which nightmarish visions of zombie apocalypse intersect with past and present cultural anxieties and fears about sexual and reproductive agency, racialized and gendered Others, and technological advancements against the backdrop of decomposing social, national, and global landscapes.  While this course emphasizes important elements of historical context in each respective zombie narrative that we analyze, it aims to identify cultural connections across time periods that demonstrate how certain anxieties persist even if they manifest in different ways. 

Tentative primary texts include George Romero’s Dead series, Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil, Peter Jackson’s Braindead (aka Dead Alive), Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, Naoyuki Tomomatsu’s Stacy, Richard Matheson’s novella I am Legend, Max Brooks’s World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, and the first volume of Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore’s comics series The Walking Dead.  In addition to the zombie texts we will be analyzing, students will also be assigned several scholarly readings dealing with the horror genre, zombies in cinema, and theoretical concepts pertinent to our discussions.

Internal Links

Assignments

Extra Credit Opportunity

Fun Zombie Resources!

Group Poster Presentations 

In-class Tasks

Primary Texts 

Resources

Secondary Readings

 1102syllabus2009.doc