Zombies and Culture

From Ancient Greece and Medieval Europe, to 19^th-century Haiti and the modern United States, the living dead have been a subject of deep concern and fascination among the living. Zombies, the living dead, have perennially instilled fear among societies, due to their relentless aggression and uncanny human attributes, maintained even in death. Zombies are very much like us. In fact, in many respects, they ARE us; driven by similar desires, angers, and fears. The world of the living dead holds up a mirror to our own, revealing the cultural anxieties of a society in any given historical moment. Centered on the question “Why do we fear the living dead?” this online course investigates how the zombie phenomenon reflects the anxieties of western societies from antiquity to the present. We will examine accounts of the living dead from literature and film in order to better understand the role the living dead have played in western culture across the centuries both as an outlet and an expression of our culture's deepest fears.