Not Your Average Zombie

Rehumanizing the Undead from Voodoo to Zombie Walks

By: Chera Kee

Write A Review

Hardcover | 5 September 2017

At a Glance

Hardcover
238 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.9 x 15.2

Hardcover

$144.10

or 4 interest-free payments of $36.02 with

Ships in 5 to 7 business days

The zombie apocalypse hasn't happened-yet-but zombies are all over popular culture. From movies and TV shows to video games and zombie walks, the undead stalk through our collective fantasies. What is it about zombies that exerts such a powerful fascination? In Not Your Average Zombie, Chera Kee offers an innovative answer by looking at zombies that don't conform to the stereotypes of mindless slaves or flesh-eating cannibals. Zombies who think, who speak, and who feel love can be sympathetic and even politically powerful, she asserts.

Kee analyzes zombies in popular culture from 1930s depictions of zombies in voodoo rituals to contemporary film and television, comic books, video games, and fan practices such as zombie walks. She discusses how the zombie has embodied our fears of losing the self through slavery and cannibalism and shows how "extra-ordinary" zombies defy that loss of free will by refusing to be dehumanized. By challenging their masters, falling in love, and leading rebellions, "extra-ordinary" zombies become figures of liberation and resistance. Kee also thoroughly investigates how representations of racial and gendered identities in zombie texts offer opportunities for living people to gain agency over their lives. Not Your Average Zombie thus deepens and broadens our understanding of how media producers and consumers take up and use these undead figures to make political interventions in the world of the living.

Industry Reviews

Kee provides a compelling synthesis of theory and criticism...useful for horror scholars interested in how portrayals of zombie intersect with race and gender. * Popular Culture Studies Journal *
[An] ambitious study...Not Your Average Zombie is an insightful, clearly written, and well-researched book that both students and experts in the field of zombie studies will enjoy. * Alphaville *
Kee's Not Your Average Zombie is an important book...Put simply: if it's the one book you read about or cite on zombie, you've made an excellent choice. * American Quarterly *
[Not Your Average Zombie] offers a fresh theoretical framework to a fast-growing field...a fascinating contribution to the critical conversation about the zombie as a fantastic figure. * Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts *
Rather than conclude that the zombie genre is static, [Kee] highlights extraordinary examples of the zombies, zombification, and zombie culture that hint at human agency amongst those often deemed brainless pawns or dehumanized bodies...In each chapter, Kee spends several pages establishing context before she focuses on her examples of extraordinary zombies. What results is robust coverage of every possible example. * ImageTexT *

Shipping

	Standard Shipping	Express Shipping
Metro postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Regional postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Rural postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95

Orders over $79.00 qualify for free shipping.

How to return your order

At Booktopia, we offer hassle-free returns in accordance with our returns policy. If you wish to return an item, please get in touch with Booktopia Customer Care.

Additional postage charges may be applicable.