Full Description
The zombie--popular culture's undead darling--shows no signs of stopping. But as it develops to suit changing audience tastes, its characteristics transform. This collection of new essays examines the latest incarnation, the romantic zombie, a re-humanized monster we want to help, heal and connect with rather than destroy. The authors discuss our increasingly sympathetic view of the reanimated dead as more than physical bodies devoid of life and personality. Their essays cover a range of topics, including audience obsession with Apocalyptic love; the problem of a kinder, gentler undead; the millennial reinvention of the "sexy zombie"; and "uncanny valley romance."
Contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Kyle William Bishop
Introduction: Kissing Corpses and Significant "Others":
Facing Our Obsession with Apocalyptic Love (Ashley Szanter and Jessica K. Richards)
From Slavery to Sex: Commodifying Romance in the Zombie
Film (Jennifer Huss Basquiat)
Nobody Wants to Be Un-Anything: Pushing Daisies and the Problem of a Kinder, Gentler Undead (Scott Rogers)
The Idea of Love and the Reality of Deadgirl (Whitney Cox and Ashley Ruth Lierman)
La Petite Mort: Death and Desire in Pride and Prejudice
and Zombies (Amy Carol Reeves)
Love and Marriage in the Time of The Walking Dead (Amanda Taylor)
Memories of You: The Undying Love of the Zombie in Harold's Going Stiff (Simon Bacon)
The Sexy Millennial Reinvention of the Undead in Warm Bodies and iZombie (Ashley Szanter and Jessica K. Richards)
"This place. It's never going to accept people like us. Never ever": (Queer) Horror, Hatred and Heteronormativity in In the Flesh (Connor Jackson)
Uncanny Valley Romance: Warm Bodies, Her and the Bits
and Bytes of Affection (Paul Muhlhauser and Jack D. Arnal)
Zombies Want Serious Commitment: The Dread of Liquid
Modernity in Life After Beth, Burying the Ex and Nina Forever (Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns, Canela Ailen
Rodriguez Fontao and Patricia Vazquez)
Braaaiiinnnsss: The Recipe for Love in iZombie (Jennifer Rachel Dutch)
The Zombie Apocalypse as Hospice Care: Maggie and the Zombie Turn as Cipher for Terminal Illness (William A. Lindenmuth)
Disaster Utopia and Survival Euphoria: (A)Sexuality
in the Zombie (Post)Apocalypse (George J. Sieg)
About the Contributors
Index
