Theorizing Zombiism 2 Conference: Undead Again

Joseph Trotta Announcement
Location
Sweden
Subject Fields
Humanities, Literature, Philosophy, Popular Culture Studies, Psychology

The zombie as an allegory for cultural, social, and scientific analysis spans almost every discipline including humanities, biology, mathematics, anthropology, economics, and political science. This range of use for the zombie narrative is a clear indication of its adaptability and viability as a distinct framework for critical theory. Theorizing Zombiism 2: Undead again will thus serve as a timely and much-needed platform for the development of international and interdisciplinary relationships between researchers, educators, practitioners and other interested parties.

Contributors are encouraged to provide discipline specific, and interdisciplinary, examinations of the zombie with the purpose of formulating an overall theoretical structure of Zombiism.

Some Potential Topics, both discipline specific and non-discipline specific, could be (but not limited to):

  • Nationalism through the zombie narrative (e.g. films like Le Horde (French), Cockneys vs Zombies (British), Dead Meat (Ireland), Ravenous (French Canadian), Zombieland (US American)).
  • Zombie Infections as a Metaphor for Pandemics.
  • Zombie Phenomenology/Philosophy/Psychoanalysis.
  • The Undead in Myth & Folklore (Zombies by other names in myths and legends, such as those found in Greek, Norse, Chinese and Egyptian mythologies, among others).
  • Globalization, Refugees, and Migration.
  • Gender/Ethnicity/Race and the Undead.
  • Zombies in Popular Culture: Re-evaluating the function of horror in society.
  • Expanding Praxis: Evaluating the expanding Zombie trope into other art forms and fields.
  • Historical/Literary Mash-ups: Re-telling historical events and/or literary works through Zombiism and other horror tropes (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion, etc).
  • Undead digital objects and issues of digital curation/Undead archival objects.
  • Zombies in Games (e.g. video games such as Resident Evil, The Last of Us, Plants vs. Zombies or board games like Zombicide, Dawn of the Zeds, Carnival Zombie, among others).
  • Legal Zombiism: Law and Legislation that refuses to die.
  • Ecocritcal Zombiism.
  • Science/Science Fiction: The science of Zombiism/The Zombification of science.
  • Zombiism and visual culture and art history.
  • Zombies and Consumer Capitalism
  • Linguistic perspectives on the undead – e.g.  genre or text type analysis via a corpus, the linguistic construction of the undead in popular culture, the types of cognitive verbs are used in zombie narratives, among others.

Send abstracts of 300 to theorizingzombiism@gmail.com by February 10, 2021.

Note that we are hoping that the majority of the events at this conference can take place in a live, synchronous format at the University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden. Having said that, we will also take advantage of alternative formats for participation and presentations, including (but not limited to) synchronous digital presentations, recorded presentations and virtual social events.

Contact Information

Please send abstracts to: theorizingzombiism@gmail.com

Other inquiries can be sent to the conference organizers: Linda Flores Ohlsson (linda.flores@sprak.gu.se) or Joe Trotta (joe.trotta@sprak.gu.se

Contact Email
theorizingzombiism@gmail.com