F          1/30     Introductions

What is a zombie? What cultural work do zombies do?

Sprint zombie commercial – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8tw94AKqOo

CDC Zombie Apocalypse Preparedness Guide – http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies.htm

Michael Jackson, “Thriller” (available on YouTube) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOnqjkJTMaA)

Zombie Classics, Or Even Texts Walk Again

F          2/6       Night of the Living Dead – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeFRPBW07SA

“How to Watch a Film” and “How to analyze a scene in a film” (posted)

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, “Monster Culture: Seven Theses” (posted)

F          2/13     Matheson, I Am Legend

your choice: at least one of the three film versions (listed above)

Deborah Christie, “A Dead New World: Richard Matheson and the Modern Zombie” (posted)

DUE: hard copy: cinematic close reading (parts 1 and 2)

The Birth of the Undead

F          2/20     White Zombie (available on Internet Archive) – https://archive.org/details/VictorHalperinsWhiteZombie1932

W.B. Seabrook, “Dead Men Working in the Cane Fields” (posted)

G. W. Hutter, “Salt Is Not for Slaves” (posted)

“Zombies! Issues Essay” (posted)

Chera Kee, “‘They are not men . . . they are dead bodies!’ From Cannibal to Zombie and Back Again” (posted)

F          2/27     I Walked with a Zombie

August Derleth and Mark Schorer, “The House in the Magnolias” (posted)

Manly Wade Wellman, “Song of the Slaves” (posted)

The Shadow, “The Isle of the Living Dead” (13 October 1940) — http://www.myoldradio.com/old-radio-episodes/the-shadow-isle-of-the-living-dead/11

Chris Vials, “The Origin of the Zombie in American Radio and Film: B-Horror, U.S. Empire, and the Politics of Disavowal” (posted)

DUE: hard copy: cinematic close reading (part 3: essay)

Pandemic, Apocalypse, and Post-

F          3/6       Brooks, World War Z

World War Z (2013) movie trailer – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcwTxRuq-uk

Aalya Ahmad, “Grey Is the New Black: Race, Class, and Zombies” (posted)

F          3/13     28 Days Later

Stephanie Boluk and Wylie Lenz, “Infection, Media, and Capitalism: From Early Modern Plagues to Postmodern Zombies” (posted)

F          3/20     Whitehead, Zone One

Carl Swanson, “’The Only Metaphor Left’: Colson Whitehead’s Zone One and Zombie Narrative Form” (posted)

N.B.: First read “Suggestions for reading Zone One” (posted)

                       

Laughing (at the) Dead

F          3/27     Shaun of the Dead

South Park, “Night of the Living Homeless” (Episode 160) – http://southpark-zone.blogspot.com/2008/01/south-park-season-11-night-of-living.html

Linda Badley, “Zombie Splatter Comedy from Dawn to Shawn: Cannibal Carnivalesque” (posted)

DUE: hard copy: tentative thesis and outline for comparison/contrast essay; bring texts to class

F          4/3 and 4/10    NO CLASS (Spring Break)

I, Zombie       

F          4/17     Warm Bodies

Rest (dir. Cole Schrieber and David Parker, 2012) –http://nofilmschool.com/2012/03/rest-zombie-film

 DUE: hard copy: comparison/contrast essay

F          4/24     The Walking Dead (1.1); Z Nation, (1.1); In the Flesh (1.1)

F          5/1       Workshop: historical essay

DUE: hard copy: tentative thesis and outline plus five annotated sources; bring texts to class

 Zombies R Us

F          5/8       Group video presentations

Conclusions

F          5/15     NO CLASS [conference]

M        5/18     DUE: historical essay

5 pm; hard copy; Macaulay