Book Study: Zombies in Western Culture

1,268 Views | 4 Replies | Last: 4 yr ago by americathegreat1492
americathegreat1492
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https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/602

Anyone interested in doing a book study on this? It can be downloaded as a free pdf. It's short, but written at a very high level. It touches on a lot of religious and philosophical themes. Parts of it are too short to make an effective argument for some of their interpretations, but I suppose that is what it is. I'm also very curious about the opinion of the historically minded regarding the account given towards the end.
ramblin_ag02
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AG
Looks interesting, but may have to wait until after the holidays. Just got some reading material off the Secret Santa exchange
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swimmerbabe11
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Same as ramblin! Trying to finish Claw and Dune before Christmas, then I'll be ready for this!
americathegreat1492
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Good deal. I'll put it on my calendar.
BusterAg
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AG
I skimmed through this, and will have some more thoughts later this week.



I think that the themes in Zombie stories are broader than the loss of an underlying Christian (and specifically to these guys, Catholic, so it seems) worldview. There has been broader discussion on the loss of faith in our institutions in general, much broader than our spirituality, especially as of the last have a dozen decades. Those themes of apocalypse and decay get caught up in lots of different movie types, and I will try to expand on this thought later.

In addition, the concerns about post Christian world, and where to find meaning in the face of that, have gone back centuries. I don't know how you can have a discussion on the impact of the loss of meaning without God in the West with nary a nod to dostojevski and nietzsche.

Another thing that I hoped to see was some discussion on attitudes towards the walking dead from centuries ago, before enlightenment time period. It was varied throughout the world, so that is an interesting study. However, I have seen too many claims that zombies are racist, so that topic was likely avoided on purpose.

Anyways, interesting thoughts. I read some discussion about zombies in film around the time of walking dead season 1 and Sean of the Dead, so I can dust off those materials when I get home.
americathegreat1492
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I think if you actually read it, you'll see that it's not about the loss of the Christian religion per se. They generalize it much broader in terms of meta-meaning systems they call worldviews. There is a section devoted to what a worldview is and how it's used. Christianity was simply the worldview in Western Civilization for nearly 2 millennia (as they argue). There is also a historical discussion of the modern zombie, which they place as originating in the early 20th century. There is discussion about why they believe the zombie is the symbol that represents the consequences of this loss and why they believe this is the correct interpretation of the zombie in comparison to others.

It's a short book, so their arguments may not be sufficient for everything, and they seem to state that several times referring to "forthcoming work" on these ideas.
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