Emily Hicks
Fall 2014
Classroom: SH 109
Office Hours: MW 3:30-4:45 PM
Office: Arts and Letters 363
ENG 626 Zombies in Lit, Film and Video
Book List:
Barker, Clive. Books of Blood. (R)
Bishop, Kyle William. American Zombie Gothic (R)
Boluk, Stephanie. Generation Zombie. (R)
Carpentier, Alejo. The Kingdom of this World. (R)
Frater, R. The First Days 2011. (R)
Hurston, Zora Neale. Tell My Horse, Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica.
Maberry, Jonathan. Patient Zero. 2009. (R)
Moreman and Ruston's Race, Oppression and the Zombie (R)
Powell. Deleuze and Horror Film (O)
Sandoval, Chela. Theory of the Oppressed. (O)
Dobie, Ann B. Theory into Practice. (O) (any edition)
MLA Handbook, 7th edition. (O)
Online:
Buck-Morss, Susan. “Hegel and Haiti.” <http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/ias/programmes/0708/integration/bhambra/2/buck_morss_hegel_haiti.pdf>'
Hicks, D. Emily (attached below): Deleuze and Sandoval
Maldonado-Torres, Nelson. “Enrique Dussel.” <http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/5hg8t7cj#page-3>.
What You Will Learn:
In this course, you will be introduced to decolonial thought (Enrique Dussel and Walter Mignolo). We will study the
evolution of various zombi/zombie traditions in historical contexts as well as in film, video, novels and short stories. We
will analyze race, class and gender through the analysis of zombie-related narratives. We will make room for a discussion
of resistance broadly defined: peaceful demonstrations, poisoning slave masters, revolution and the politics of sorcery. You
will be made familiar with current approaches to social concerns of the Americas in the areas of literary theory, queer
theory, geophilosphy, postmodernism, performance theory and Frankfurt Theory. We will consider the purposes of horror as
well as the use of zombie and vampires imagery in multiple contexts. I will argue that your encounter with zombies will be
an important step in your own journey on the path towards decolonizing the self. Although the focus will be on zombies,
you may write about horror and vampires.
Zombies
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Reading
Discussion
8.25
Introduction
Overview of syllabus.
8.27
Brains
“A Brain is a Terrible Thing to Waste Generation Boomer,” Generation Zombie,
pp. 206-218; Maldonado Torres (online article on Dussel); Tell My Horse, pp. 150.
9.1
Holiday
9.3
Race, Racism and Rushton and Moreman Introduction, pp. 1-12. Tell My Horse, pp. 51-100.
Zombies I
Kerestezi, Race, Oppression and the Zombie, pp. 31-41.
9.8
Race, Racism and Hurston, Tell My Horse, pp. 101-150. Inglis, Race, Oppression and the Zombie,
Zombies II
pp. 42-59.
9.1
Zombies as Gobetween between
Supremacists and
Ahmad, “Gray is the New Black,” Generation Zombie, pp. 130-146. Hicks'
“Sandoval's Oppositional Vectors and Complexity Science.” Includes reference to
Virilio.
Subalterns
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
“Raising the Living Dead,” American Zombie Gothic, Ch. 1.
9.15
Origins of the
Voodoo Zombie
9.17
L4D: Possibility “Rhetoric Goes Boom(er),” Generation Zombie, pp. 219-230;
Space, Shredding
the Dead with
Your Guitar and
Social Critique:
Slave, Swarm and
Middle Ground
9.22
Virtual Intimacy
McGlotten, Shaka. “Dead and Live Life, Zombies, Queers and Online Sociality,”
and Sites of Death Generation Zombie, pp. 182-93. Note: discussion will be on “screwed up,
-in-Life as
homeless, mentally-ill kids” with “eating disorders.”
Potentially Vital
9.24
New World
(Zombie) Order
The First Days, pp. 1-53; Austin, “Cyberpunk and the Living Dead,” Generation
Zombie, pp. 147-55. Jane Love essay.
9.29
The First Days, pp. 84-167
10,1
The First Days, pp. 168-251. Riley, “The E-Dead, Zombies in the Digital” pp.
194-205.
10.6
The First Days, pp. 252 -336
10,8
“The Midnight Meat Train,” Books of Blood, pp. 15-42.
10.13
Books of Blood, pp. 296-324.
10.15
Books of Blood, pp. “Dread,” pp. 167-203 and “Son of Celluloid,” pp. 327-361.
10.2
Al-Qaeda and
Zombie
Containment
10.22
Week 10 10.27
Patient Zero, pp. 1-72. Zealand, Christopher, “The Myth Meets Activism in Post9/11 America.”
Patient Zero, pp. 73-145.
Violence and
Patient Zero, pp. 146-218. LaRose, Nicole, “Zombies in a “Deep, Dark Ocean of
Pathology Already History,” Generation Zombie, pp. 165-181.
within Us
10.29
Patient Zero, pp. 219-291.
Week 11 11.3
Patient Zero, pp. 292-324.
11.5
Patient Zero, pp. 325-421.
Hegel and Haiti
Buck-Morss, Susan. “Hegel and Haiti.” The Kingdom of this World, pp. 1-60.
11.12
Hegel and Haiti
The Kingdom of this World, pp. 61-120.
Week 13 11.17
Hegel and Haiti
The Kingdom of this World, pp. 121-80
Week 12 11.1
11.19
Presentations
Week 14 11.24
Presentations
11.26
Holiday 26-28
Week 15 12.1
Presentations
12.3
Presentations
Week 16 12.8
Presentations
12.1
Presentations.
Finals 12.11-17
12.15
FINALS
12.17
FINALS
Final: Wednesday, December 17, 3:30-5:30 PM.
Requirements:
This course is focused on research. The midterm, final and presentation may include analyses of zombie/vampire topics
within any genre (film, television program, novel, short story, video game, comic, graphic novel, etc.).
Midterm: 5-7 pages (300 points)
Final: 7-10 pages (500 points)
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Midterm: 300 points (3 page paper)
Final: 400 points (3 page paper)
Quizzes: 100 points
Presentations: 200 points
Participation: (roll will be taken—please make the class better by participating)
Total: 1000 points
930-1000 points equals and A. 900-929 equals an A-. 870-899 equals a B+. 830-869 equals a B. 800-829 equals a B-.
770-779 equals a C+. 730-769 equals a C. 700-729 equals a C-. 670-699 equals a D+. 630-669 equals a D. 600-629
equals a D-. Below 600 equals an F.
Throughout the semester, there may be a few ungraded assignments. They may improve your grade indirectly, through
offering you a chance to perfect your understanding of the material.
Attached Reading:
Deleuze and Sandoval: Oppositional Vectors (Borders, Trespassing and Speed)
In order to understand Chela Sandoval's metaphorical use of the term “vector” and combinations of oppositional vectors
within the context of cyberconscioussnes, it is useful to refer to non-metaphorical uses of the terms “vector” and
“manifold.”1 In her essay “Dialogues between Paul Virilio and Chela Sandoval, Towards a Better Understanding of Uses
and Abuses of New Technologies,” Ingrid Maria Hoofd argues that for Sandoval, higher speed and connections larger
vectors (a combination of oppositional vectors). Sandoval, Gilles Deleuze and Manuel DeLanda all refer to manifolds;
Sandoval's use of the term appears in Hoofd's essay. Sandoval uses the term “rhizomatic” to describe the relationships
between vectors. Sandoval argues that we are all hybrids. She describes five vectors; the fifth vector is differential
movement and it is associated with cyberconsciousness. An exploration of cyberconsciousness is undertaken by McGinnis,
in “Gender Performance”; she refers to the work of Sandoval, Donna Haraway and Judith Butler in her analysis of cyborgrelated figures known as cylons and two female characters, Lieutenant Kara “Starbuck” Thrace and President Laura Roslin
Battlestar Galactica.2 Hybridity and consciousness in Sandoval's work can also be viewed in relation to Gloria Anzaldua's
concept of “mestiza consciousness” (O'Driscoll 33).3
While for Sandoval, higher speed and connections are associated with “larger vectors” and a “manifold” (see Hoofd) in
which there is a “combination of oppositional vectors,” from a complexity perspective, speed is not necessarily associated
with connections.4 Although for complexity scientists, faster time scales are not necessarily associated with a greater
number of connections, a hierarchy-based complexity approach does allow for a diagramming of the many connections in
the human brain on the fastest time scale of neurons. The kind of coupling that occurs between time scales in a complexity
hierarchy takes place between time scales and allows for a great number of connections as well.
For Sandoval, technology is liberating. Hoofd contrasts this technophilic view to David Harvey's concept of time-space
compression, Michael Hardt and Tony Negri's discussion of the “suspension of history,” Paul Virilio's view of a dystopian
technological future and the work on technology of John Armitage. She points out that viewed in relation to Sandoval's
utopian perspective of technology, the latter's vision is thrown in to question. However, Hoofd observes that the negative
aspects of technology of Virilio overshadow some of the liberatory aspects, especially for populations of color. She
associates the focus on the negative aspects of technology of Virilio with a “nostalgia for modern unified Western man.”
The ability that some Chicana feminist have shown in being able to “re-stage” themselves is lauded by Hoofd.
The concept of a “combination” of Sandoval's “oppositional vectors” can be approached through the use of critical tools in
media studies and postcolonialism. Maria Fernandez, in “Postcolonial Media Theory,” addresses the issue of the absence,
according to some, of postcolonial theory in electronic media practice, theory, and criticism. She gives an example of work
that is both experimental and informed by postcolonial theory, a 1997 project by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Will Bauer, and
Susie Ramsay entitled “Displaced Emperors.” This project can be viewed using Sandoval's categories.
The concept of the “digital divide” and the global digital divide have been used to argue that technology benefits certain
groups more than others, and that whites, particularly in the United States, have a privileged relationship to technology.
Two examples of technology-related emergent movements that could be viewed using Sandoval's concept of “oppositional
vectors” and that also involve an impact on the lives of people of color are the Zapatista cyberwar in Mexico and the
Melungeon movement in the United States. The Zapatista movement benefited from its occupation of cyberspace; the
movement was built on layers that could be seen in relation to “oppositional vectors” (Ronfeldt and Arquilla). When the
Internet arrived in southern Appalachia in the southeastern United States, the mixed ancestry population known as
Melungeons was able to communicate with one another on an unprecedented level of interconnectedness (Podber). This
instance of cyberconsciousness was followed by the emergence of a self-conscious, politicized mixed ancestry population
that became known as the Melungeon Movement.
End Notes:

Manuel DeLanda discusses vectors, vector fields and manifolds in Intensive Science and Virtual
Philosophy. The term “manifold” comes from the differential geometry of Friedrich Gauss and Bernhard Riemann.

McGinnis refers to Butler's essay “Performative Acts,”

O'Driscoll writes that Anzaldua's concept of “mestiza consciousness” “suggests ways in which complex
of different identity categories produce a new consciousness that defines identity not by remaining within borders
but by crossing or reworking them” (O'Driscoll 33). This could be considered trespassing. Anzaldua discusses the
border in relation to trespassing in Borderlands.

Further information about complexity science can be found in Paul Cillier's Complexity and
Postmodernism and Melanie Mitchell's Complexity, a Guided Tour. An application of the tools of complexity
combined with agent-based modelling can be seen in B.T. Werner and William McNamara's article
Works Cited:
Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands, la Frontera. San Francisco: Spinster-Aunt Lute, 1987.
Anzaldua, Gloria. “La consiencia de la mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness.” In Making Face, Making
Soul/Haciendo Caras. Ed. Gloria Anzaldua. San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1990. 356-69.
Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution; As Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” The
Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. Ed. Amelia Jones. New York: Routledge, 2003. 392-402.
Cilliers, Paul. Complexity and Postmodernism. New York: Routledge, 1998.
DeLanda, Manuel. Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. London and New York: Continuum, 2002.
Fernandez, Maria. “Postcolonial Media Theory.” Art Journal. 58.3 (1999): 58-73.
Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.”
Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991
Hoofd, Ingrid Maria. “Dialogues between Paul Virilio and Chela Sandoval, Towards a Better Understanding of Uses and
Abuses of New Technologies.” Genders. 39 (2004).
McGinnis, Katy. “Gender Performance, Transgression and the Cyborg in Battlestar Galactica.” Oculus. 1
<http://www.dsq- sds.org/index.php/juros/article/viewFile/1256/1267>.
Mitchell, Melanie. Complexity, a Guided Tour. 2009. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
O'Driscoll, Sally. “Outlaw Readings: Beyond Queer Theory.” Signs. 22.1 (1996): 30-51.
Podber, Jacob. The Electronic Front Porch : An Oral History of the Arrival of Modern Media in Rural Appalachia and the
Melungeon Community. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2007.
Ronfeldt, David and John Arquilla. “Emergence and Influence of the Zapatista Social Netwar.”
<http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1382/MR1382.ch6.pdf>.
Sandoval, Chela. Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.
Werner, B.T and William McNamara. “Dynamics of coupled human-landscape systems” Geomorphology. 91.3-4 (2007):
393-407.