programme of the Zombosium. 28th October 2011 University of Winchester

5. Welcome
Welcome to the Zombosium. This symposium is dedicated to that most
unloved of the undead, the humble zombie. Yet despite the relative weakness
when compared to their gothic undead cousins zombies have acquired a new
currency in contemporary times that werewolves, vampires and ghouls could
only dream of.
Zombies span the media: They have escaped their traditional environment of
celluloid, invaded online and digital video, infested games, contaminated
mobile content and now no field of media remains uninfected.
This proliferation poses many new questions: what do zombies represent?
What fears or neurosis do they articulate? Are they tied to particular social
phenomena – serving as a barometer of angst or helplessness in the face of
new times of uncertainty? Who are zombies – are they us or are they an
‗other‘ to be expunged? Is their decrepit physicality illustrative of a rejection of
the myth of physical beauty? Can zombies run? What is the best weapon
against them? Do we really have to destroy the brain?
We hope to address these and many other questions of zombies at the
Zombosium. The papers presented here cover a range of topics and the
organistaion of the panels hopefully brings together scholars with convergent
interests.
We are also hosting a showing of Dawn of the Dead (2004) starting at about
5.30pm in the Stripe Auditorium on campus. Following this we will find
somewhere to eat and have a drink or two.
I hope you enjoy the event.
Marcus Leaning

6. Programme
Performance Gym Boardroom
9.30 – 10.00 Tea / Coffee
Welcome: Professor Liz Stuart, Senior
10.00 Pro Vice Chancellor, University of
Winchester.
Keynote: Ian Conrich: An Infected Population: Zombie Culture and the Modern
10.05- 10.45
Monstrous
The Walking Dead… I ♥ Zombies: Zombie Fans and
Chair: Laura Hubner Creatives
Chair: Ian Conrich
Kerry Gough Dead Special: Zombies,
SFX and Making the Undead Paul Manning Zomedies, digtal fan
Respectable in the Reception of AMC‘s cultures and the politics of taste
The Walking Dead (2010)
10.45-12.15 Dominik Maeder The Walking Dead,
True Blood and the Survival of Marcus Leaning Zombie Apocalypse
Television Survivor Communities on Mumsnet and
Youtube
Darren Reed and Ruth Penfold-
Mounce The Zombification of the Elizabeth Switaj Night Wreck: A Hybrid
Sociological Imagination: The Walking Creative-Critical Presentation
Dead as Social Science Fiction
12.15 – 1.15 Lunch (Huurrhhh! Brains!!)
Be Afraid… The Thinking Dead…
Chair: Marcus Leaning Chair: Shaun Kimber
Laura Hubner The Fear of Zombie Julia Round Zombies, absence and
Flesh Eaters: From Video Nasty to Blu- existentialism: Are we the walking dead?
ray
1.15 – 2.45
Jordan Lloyd and Roger Cooper Z- Gary Farnell The Current Conjuncture
Rated:Zombie-proof your own home and Its Monsters‘
Chris Farnell What Are We Afraid Of: Yari Lanci Zombie 2.0 subjectivity: a new
Hotel Rwanda as a Zombie Movie dromological paradigm
2.45-3.15 Tea / Coffee
Zombie Environment and planning A Zombie Environment and planning B
Chair: Paul Manning Chair: Marcus Leaning
Christian Lenz ―Never to Return Emma Dyson Space and Place in
Home‖: Nomadic Tendencies and the Zombie Culture: How fictional film inspires
Notion of Home in Dead Set dissent, celebration and the carnivalesque
in social spaces.
3.15 – 4.45 Antonio Sanna Consumerism and the
Undead City: Silent Hill and the Toby Venables Locating the Zombie:
Resident Evil Films Landscapes of the Living Dead
Shaun Kimber Zombies are us:
Zombiedom and Media & Film
Education within British Higher
Education
Stripe Auditorium
5.30 Film screening of Dawn of the Dead (2004) with an introduction by Ian Conrich

7. Keynote Paper - Boardroom, 10.00 - Introduced by Marcus Leaning
Ian Conrich, University of Essex
An Infected Population: Zombie Culture and the Modern Monstrous
Like a contagion, the modern horror film has spread from the screen - where it
was relatively contained - and into the streets and homes beyond. Horror
movies have now successfully penetrated comic books, computer games, toy
stores, and fancy dress shops, with innocent children seduced by the
opportunity to wear replica costumes of the screen's most hideous creatures.
Leading this monster invasion is a zombie culture that has infected a willing
population, albeit a hungry horde of part-timers feeding off a consumer
culture.
The recent rapid growth in the number of zombie films has been matched by
the emergence of a zombie culture, which has seen a series of zombie walks
across the UK in Birmingham, Bristol, Brighton, Newcastle and Leicester. The
zombie walks are a development of the flash mob transgressions, with a DIY
ethic encouraged through home-made blood-strewn clothes and decay-effect
makeup, which is celebrated through a parade presenting creativity and
ingenuity. Zombie ingenuity is certainly in the merchandise supporting this
contagion, with zombie energy drinks (crimson coloured and sold in blood
bags), remote controlled zombies (operated by a hand-held brain), and
garden zombie sculptures that give the appearance that the living dead are
pushing up through your lawn.
This paper will aim to corral a range of these specimens, focusing on the
zombie walks and zombie merchandise to understand in what ways the
population has become infected and how a zombie culture has created a
modern monstrous.

8. Parallel Panel 1 Boardroom 10.45-12.15 The Walking Dead…
Chair: Laura Hubner
Kerry Gough Dead Special: Zombies, SFX and Making the Undead
Respectable in the Reception of AMC‟s The Walking Dead (2010) Kerry
Gough
Kerry Gough, Birmingham City University
Originating from the ongoing comic book series by Robert Kirkman (2003-),
AMC‘s The Walking Dead (2010) is the latest resurrection in the zombification
of culture. In an era where a proliferation of comic book adaptation has
saturated the cinema screen, sfx technology has now allowed for the spread
of zombie culture within the blockbuster television environment (Gough,
2007). This contagion has led to the infection of popular cultural reference and
a permeation of low brow sensibility into high budget quality American
television programming and content.
With the writing and executive producer team of Frank Darabont and Robert
Kirkman, and Darabont directing, AMC continue to carve out a space for The
Waking Dead within the quality television schedule. Off the back of the
success of Mad Men (2007) and Breaking Bad (2008), The Walking Dead
serves to capture a quality position amongst the US network schedule,
harnessing its public in an effort to compete with HBO and Showtime through
its original high-quality drama series. Add to this an all-star cast; Andrew
Lincoln (This Life, Human Traffic, Love Actually, Teachers, Afterlife), Jon
Bernthal (Night at the Museum 2, Num3ers, The Pacific), Sarah Wayne
Callies (Queens Supreme, Prison Break), Laurie Holden (The Magnificent
Seven, The X Files, Fantastic Four, Silent Hill, The Mist, The Shield) and
Jeffrey DeMunn (Law and Order, The Green Mile, The Mist) – The Walking
Dead has all the markings of quality blockbuster television. With a spattering
of sfx heritage from Greg Nicotero (Romero‘s Day of the Dead, Land of the
Dead and Survival of the Dead, From Dusk Till Dawn series, Sin City,
Grindhouse, Death Proof, The Pacific) who trained under the legendary Tom
Savini, The Walking Dead marks out mainstream appeal for the zombie
culture.
Unlike coagulated zombie blood, the reception for the series has been warm
and flowing, recognising the series as a representative marker of AMC‘s
successful bid towards quality television. AMC, in its mainstreaming of
zombies appeals to its horror tv fans, while expectations of blockbuster sfx
provide the necessary blockbusting elements. Reviewers have praised the
series‘ use of ‗traditional makeup FX instead of CGI‘ (nvillesanti, 2010)
commending the series for ‗spectacular special effects that one would expect
to see in a high budget Hollywood movie‘ (Brown, 2010). One reviewer
identifies The Walking Dead as a ‗glorious super production of a tv series‘ in
which ‗AMC has become a synonym for the highest possible quality in

9. entertainment‘ (fe_scolfaro, 2010), while another affirms that accolade in
referring to the series as ‗28 Day Later on tv‘ (Moviegeek, 2010). One thing for
certain, is blockbuster sfx‘s contribution to the zombie contagion of
mainstream television. Zombies plus sfx equals dead special, and with a new
series set to hit US screens later in 2011, in the words of LMFAO, ‗everyday
I‘m shufflin‘‘ in anticipation of the next Zombie invasion and network
infestation.

10. Dominik Maeder The Walking Dead, True Blood and the Survival of
Television
Dominik Maeder, M.A. (Constance/Vienna)
Experiencing the rapid breakthrough of the World Wide Web in the mid- and
late 90s, many Internet pioneers, media critics and TV executives all the same
predicted a foreseeable decline of television, ultimately to result in the death
of the outdated goggle-box (cf. Miller 2010: 175-186). Ten to 15 years later,
those reports have proved to be greatly exaggerated. However, media
scholars still debate which shape the survival of television in the digital era
takes: Is it a resurrected ―Television after TV‖ (Spigel/Olsson 2004), an
undead medium placed in a new media context (Gripsrud 2010) or rather
some form of non-physical content in search of a new body (Kompare 2006)?
Instead of adding another theoretical approach to these comprehensive
concepts, I shall conceive of the zombies and vampires depicted in the
popular US TV series The Walking Dead (AMC, 2010-) and True Blood (HBO,
2008-) as reflexive televisual figures of transmission, serving as means of
rethinking television‟s status as a medium of transmission within the medium
itself. Therefore my presentation will focus on the specific modes of
transmission embodied in zombie and vampire „life‟: While bare zombie life
represents a relentless threat operating through invasion, infection and
erasure of subjectivity (Bishop 2009; Canavan 2010), romantically charged
vampire life remains menace and temptation, drug and cure at same time.
Could we accordingly identify different ways of dealing with the digitization of
TV‟s mode of transmission within the two series?
Works Cited
Bishop, Kyle (2009): ―Dead Man Still Walking: Explaining the Zombie
Renaissance‖, in: Journal of Popular Film and Television, 37(1)/2009: 16-25
Canavan, Gerry (2010): ―‟We Are the Walking Dead‟: Race, Time, and
Survival in Zombie Narrative‖, in: Extrapolation, 51(3)/2010: 431-453
Gripsrud, Jostein (Ed.) (2010): Relocating Television. Television in the digital
context. London: Routledge
Kompare, Derek (2006): ―Publishing Flow: DVD Box Sets and the
Reconception of Television‖, in: Television & New Media, 7(4)/2006: 335-360
Miller, Toby (2010): Television Studies. The Basics. London/New York:
Routledge
Spigel, Lynn/Olsson, Jan (Eds.) (2004): Television after TV. Essays on a
Medium in Transition. Durham & London: Duke University Press

11. Darren Reed and Ruth Penfold-Mounce The Zombification of the
Sociological Imagination: The Walking Dead as Social Science Fiction
Darren Reed and Ruth Penfold-Mounce, University of York
Osborne, Rose and Savage (2008: 531) make the observation that
‗professional sociologists…are not the only people who investigate, analyse,
theorise and give voice to…phenomena from a ―social‖ point of view‘. In this
paper we assert that the zombie genre is part of phenomena that shed light
on society through a non-scholarly format making it a form of social science-
fiction (Penfold-Mounce, Beer and Burrows, 2009). Drawing on the AMC
television show The Walking Dead we will explore two key sociological
themes that are central to the series: emotion and mobility. These two themes
are dominant in the narrative of The Walking Dead and have been used in
manner that enables a re-enchantment of the sociological imagination and
placing the show into a similar realm as the HBO series The Wire which has
been heralded as inherently ‗sociological‘ (Penfold-Mounce, Beer and
Burrows, 2009.

12. Parallel Panel 2 MB2 10.45-12.15 I ♥ Zombies: Zombie Fans and
Creatives
Chair: Ian Conrich
Paul Manning Zomedies, digtal fan cultures and the politics of taste
Paul Manning, University of Winchester
Following recent work by Kackman and others (2011) on the role of on-line
'paratexts' in structuring the uses and interpretations of contemporary
television drama, this paper will explore the on-line ecology of paratexts
generated by the recent film Zombies of Mass Destruction. It will suggest that
the particular features of the zombie film and, more specifically the zombie
comedy film or Zomedy, lend themselves to being the objects of discussion
within the discursive fields sustained by on-line paratextual sites. These
features include genre conventions and audience expectations of pleasure,
the political economic elements of production, and possibilities for political
engagement within the spaces offered by the zombie text. Thus, a film such
as ZMD must be understood not simply as a text in isolation but a cultural
formation, comprising of the ecology of the text and on-line paratexts. But
‗Zomedies‘, particular those with a ‗political message‘ such as ZMD may
generate significant tensions within fan communities because in the eyes of
some both the comedic and political elements undercut traditional ‗zombine
pleasures‘. These tensions may be exacerbated or accelerated by new media
paratexts through which particular taste hierarchies are proposed, resisted
and re-structured..

13. Marcus Leaning Zombie Apocalypse Survivor Communities on Mumsnet and
Youtube
Marcus Leaning, University of Winchester
Faux-real texts have been a popular sub- genre within horror across a number
of media. In texts concerned with zombies the sub-genre has appeared in
films such as Diary of the Dead (Romero, 2008) and novels such as Zombie
Apocalypse (Jones, 2010). This paper considers how one variant of this
theme, Zombie Apocalypse Survival Guides (ZASGs) have been centralised,
incorporated and extended within two distinct online communities.
ZASGs have been a popular literary form for a number of years (Brooks,
2003; Ma & Heller, 2010; Page, 2010; Seslick, 2010; Thomas & Thomas,
2009). The genre has also manifested itself various other media forms such
as web pages and wikis (Marsden, 2007), downloadable guides (Johnson,
2006) and even guides for playing zombie modifications on video games
packaged as non-game zombie apocalypse survival guides (Lee & Miggels,
2011). One interesting development has been the integration of ZASGs
themes with various forms of social networking communities – facebook
groups for example - and user generated content dissemination sites.
The integration of ZASGs in both social networking and content dissemination
sites has resulted in considerable peer-level communication between users of
the sites.
This paper details research on two such systems: a discussion thread on the
Mumsnet parenting website concerning how to survive the zombie apocalypse
and comments arising from a Zombie Survival Guide video posted on
Youtube.
Initial findings indicate that there is a considerable disparity in to the level of
continuity of discussants in the two systems. It is argued that the centrality of
the text to discussion is in converse relationship with the continuity of the
community – the more focussed the site is on a particular text the less
cohesive the emergent community is.
Brooks, M. (2003). The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the
Living Dead: Three Rivers Press.
Johnson, D. (Ed.) (2006) How to Survive Zombies!!!! www.davefilms.us
Jones, S. (2010). Zombie Apocalypse! : Constable & Robinson Limited.
Lee, S., & Miggels, B. (2011). Call of Duty Black Ops: Zombie Survival Guide
- When gun juice simply isn't enough. Take this journal. . Retrieved 21
August, 2011, from http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/115/1159873p1.html
Ma, R., & Heller, Y. N. (2010). The Zombie Combat Manual: A Guide to
Fighting the Living Dead: Penguin Group USA.
Marsden. (2007). Zombie Survival guide and Defense Wiki. Retrieved 07
August, 2011, from http://www.zombiesurvivalwiki.com/

14. Page, S. T. (2010). The Official Zombie Handbook (UK: Severed Press.
Romero, G. A. (Writer) (2008). Diary of the Dead. USA: Dimension Films.
Seslick, D. (2010). Dr Dale's Zombie Dictionary: The A-Z Guide to Staying
Alive: Allison & Busby.
Thomas, M. G., & Thomas, N. S. (2009). Zompoc: How to Survive a Zombie
Apocalypse: Swordworks.

15. Elizabeth Switaj Night Wreck: A Hybrid Creative-Critical Presentation
Elizabeth
Elizabeth Switaj, Queen‘s University Belfast
A train crashes, spilling unknown chemicals into the air. A nearby rural town
suffers heavy casualties overnight, as an isolated survivor is forced to kill his
neighbours, friends, and family members who have been transformed into
monsters. In the 1500-word short story, ―Night Wreck,‖ I present a tale of
horror that follows this cliché sequence of events but with a twist: the second-
person narrative is unreliable. Events may not have taken place the way they
are described and, even if they did, the ―zombies‖ may in fact have been
unundead—that is to say, merely human.
I will open this hybrid presentation with a brief discussion of the elements of
the zombie genre which appear in the story and how these elements have
been used in major zombie media such as Night of the Living Dead, Shaun of
the Dead, and World War Z, and Shaun of the Dead. After reading the story, I
will argue that my particular remix of these elements reflects the concerns of
the age of Wikileaks—which is also the post-9/11 and post-7/7 world—in
which we believe that there are a terrifying threats in the world and yet do not
trust the governments which claim to protect us from these threats.

16. Parallel Panel 3 MB1 1.15 - 2.45 Be Afraid…
Chair: Marcus Leaning
Jordan Lloyd and Roger Cooper Z-Rated:Zombie-proof your own home
University Sheffield Private Practice
Mathematical models of a zombie contagion conclude that the spread of
infection will far exceed any organised resistance, unless aggressive counter
tactics are employed. In the United Kingdom (and indeed most countries in
the world), citizens do not have the benefit of the Second Amendment to carry
firearms like our American cousins; resulting in a much lower survival rate for
untainted humans.
Our entry into the second annual Zombie Safehouse Competition is not a
‗one-off‘ mobile fortress, but rather a socio-economic strategy, culturally
embedded in our social psyche in the way we know best: the cult of
consumerism. Rather than create a ‗zombie-proof house‘, it is instead
proposed to zombie-proof your own home in the event of a zombie
apocalypse. The proposal approaches designing a zombie proof house from a
perspective which assumes a future of everyday (albeit unwanted) co-
existence with the undead. Z-Rated: Zombie-proof your own home projects a
typical suburban London based strategy for adapting ordinary Londoners
homes for protection against the marauding zombie threat.
Our response to a zombie contagion considers a strategy without the options
of an antigen or vaccination. Integrated into Prime Minister David Cameron‘s
vision for the ‗Big Society‘, a parliamentary response is prematurely
distributed online, and runs as the main headline in a popular free London
newspaper. It describes a strategy using Big Society rhetoric: building
communities, decentralised power and localism. In short, getting the proles to
pay for everything themselves, in the perfect union of the public and private
sectors.

17. Laura Hubner The Fear of Zombie Flesh Eaters: From From Video Nasty to
Blu-ray
Laura Hubner, University of Winchester
Released in the UK as Zombie Flesh Eaters, Lucio Fulci‘s Zombi 2 (1979) has
continued to excite new audiences with its bold set-pieces. The film hosts a
rich display of zombie-versus-shark action, apocalyptic church-burning and
slow-moving zombies finally making their way across the bridge to New York,
shuffling to the beat of Fabio Frizzi‘s score. As the movie is about to be
available on Blu-ray at the end of this month, with an impressive features
listing, this is a key moment to review some of the controversies and debates
that have over the years been incited by the film.
Zombie Flesh Eaters has sparked most debate over its use and levels of gore,
and a number of its scenes, such as the eye-piercing and the communal
flesh-feast, have helped it to maintain a lively, and elaborate, relationship with
the censors and critics. Focusing on censorship and reception, in relation to
the changing cultural and historical contexts, this paper looks at the major
regulatory frameworks and decisions made since the film‘s inception,
unravelling some of the underlying tensions, fears and taboos suggested by
these decisions in relation to the film text, and the context of specific
sequences within it. The paper will also explore issues raised by technological
and exhibition developments, such as the shifting viewing contexts brought
about by video and DVD.

18. Chris Farnell What Are We Afraid Of: Hotel Rwanda as a Zombie Movie
Chris Farnell, Freelance Writer
Hotel Rwanda is a film that tells the story of a very real and horrific sequence
of actual events. However, in the story‘s characters and plot structure, the film
closely mirrors the structure of many zombie apocalypse movies from Night of
the Living Dead through to the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake. The film
features a host of the staple elements of the zombie movie- the initial
(unbelieved) news broadcasts, the eventual siege narrative, the military and
governmental bodies that are unable or unwilling to help, and of course, the
key point of the film- a society breaking down as ordinary people turn violently
on one another.
The aim of this paper is not to illustrate anything about either Hotel Rwanda or
the act of genocide it portrays by showing how it mirrors a zombie movie, but
rather, the reverse. Highlighting the real events that influenced the creation of
class zombie movies, and showing how the fantastical events of the zombie
apocalypse genre are reflected in the retelling of the terrible real life events of
Hotel Rwanda, we can cast a light on just what it is about the story of the
zombie apocalypse that scares us so much, and perhaps more importantly
and disturbingly, what it is about the zombie apocalypse that we actually
fantasise about.

19. Parallel Panel 4 MB2 1.15 - 2.45 The Thinking Dead…
Chair: Shaun Kimber
Julia Round Zombies, absence and existentialism: Are we the walking
dead?
Julia Round, University of Bournemouth
Although the living dead continue to decay, their stories are evolving. This
paper uses existential philosophy to analyse Robert Kirkman‘s The Walking
Dead (both TV series and comic) in the wider context of zombie narratives. It
argues that the text is representative of contemporary zombie texts in its
desire to excise zombies from their own narratives, and that this development
is best understood in the context of existentialism.
The paper focuses first on the notions of essence and ethics, whereby the
‗soul‘ is determined only by one‘s choices and actions, and discusses the
ways in which Rick‘s self-imposed quest(s) (to find his family, to protect his
wife and children, to keep his group alive) illustrate this idea and project
meaning into his life. It points out that the still and empty landscape of The
Walking Dead contributes to this depiction, and argues that a zombie text is
the perfect foil for this setting.
Concepts such as identity and the Other are then discussed. Identity is
consistently problematised (although ultimately not denied) in The Walking
Dead – whose zombies, in contrast to more traditional narratives, are not the
demonised Other. Instead, Rick and his group are in conflict with the people
they encounter. It identifies a similar tendency in other contemporary zombie
texts and concludes by situating The Walking Dead in relation to these. It
notes the current cultural trend to redefine zombeism as a disease across
multiple media (28 Days/Weeks Later; Resident Evil) and the link between
technology and transmission (Pontypool, The Cell).
In this way, The Walking Dead is exemplary of the next phase in a developing
narrative of zombies. Early themes (possession/slavery) that gave way to
twentieth-century concerns (consumerism, technology) have now replaced by
a ‗post-zombieism‘ that, although it ostensibly sustains the presence of these
creatures, in actual fact seeks to excise them from their own narratives in
order to better illustrate the existential plight of humanity.

20. .
Gary Farnell The Current Conjuncture and Its Monsters
Gary Farnell, University of Winchester
This paper argues for the value of the zombie myth as an interpretative motif
in relation to the financial and related forms of crisis in the global capitalist
system. Images of monsters and of the apocalypse in the financial press
during the 2008 financial crisis constitute the focus of discussion. The
conclusion this paper reaches is one that posits the figure of the zombie as
traversing the problem of representation of the present crisis, being in this
regard at once an embodiment of the Lacanian object a and a form of political
resource. At the same time, a displacement of the vampire by the zombie is
traced in the course of historical-into-contemporary Marxist Gothic literature
on capitalist production. This is all for the reason that, as is well known, the
image of the zombie signifies the end of civilization itself.

21. Yari Lanci Zombie 2.0 subjectivity: a new dromological paradigm
Yari Lanci, Freelance
The zombie genre, buried half-dormant for many years, has been brought
back to ‗life‘ during the last ten years. The renewed attention and popularity of
the figure of the undead, the varied attempts at representing this figure, and
the massive economic investments of numerous media productions – such as
the recent TV series ―The Walking Dead‖ – constitute some of the most visible
symptoms of a very specific ―political unconscious‖. As Fredric Jameson
would put it, this political unconscious is increasingly aware of a new
paradigm shift regarding the process of political subjectification. This paper
will try to analyse different trends which might characterize a new theoretical
understanding of the figure of the walking dead, especially in relation to our
own political moment and, more precisely, to the specific process of
subjectification within the neoliberal framework. Our starting point will be an
investigation of the zombie character in relation to the speed of its
movements, drawing on Virilio‘s concept of ―dromology‖. Our central tenet is
that although a generalised constant increase of speed towards its
absolutization was already detected by the French philosopher during the
1980s and 1990s, this trend has more recently undergone a dramatic
metamorphosis, with the emergence of contemporary neoliberal capitalism.
Observed from this dromological perspective, it might be argued that zombies‘
increased speed of movement, as in Boyle‘s ―28 Days Later‖ (and its
successors), on the one hand may be seen to depict the new kind of
subjectification in operation in the third millennium, on the other, however, this
speed opens up spaces of theorization about the disruptive potential of what
we will call the ―Zombie 2.0 subjectivity‖.

22. Parallel Panel 5 MB1 3.15 - 4.45 Zombie Environment and Planning A…
Chair: Paul Manning
Christian Lenz “Never to Return Home”: Nomadic Tendencies and the
Notion of Home in Dead Set
Christian Lenz, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, TU Dortmund,
Germany
―An English(wo)man‘s home is his/her castle‖ is a well-known idiom,
connecting the private space with strongholds in which one can reside and
whose walls are to keep enemies out. In E4‘s mini-series Dead Set a perfect
example of a castle is presented: a home away from home, an artificial mini-
cosmos. Having created a Foucauldian panopticon with the famous Big
Brother house, the inmates are happy to live their lives in front of the camera
and audiences are eager to watch – until the zombie apocalypse starts.
I claim that Dead Set provides a new, if bleak idea of the concepts of home
and belonging as the inmates turn their artificial ‗home‘ into a proper fortress
against the living dead – heightening their insularity to the extreme. This is
juxtaposed with people on the outside, who have not yet been turned into a
zombie and who have to leave their homes in order to escape the undead or
find new nutritional resources – the real home, the comfortable castle
becomes a distant memory. Humans have to become nomads in the sense
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari proposed: Never be truly able to settle at
one spot but only to rest temporarily. This, again, links the nomads to zombies
who can never settle down, either: Just like the humans they are forced to
wander the earth, begging the question whether the idea of home has to be
abandoned at all in zombie narratives. Eviction day is coming.

23. Antonio Sanna Consumerism and the Undead City: Silent Hill and the
Resident Evil
Films
Antonio Sanna Freelance writer
In my paper I shall examine the recent horror films Silent Hill (2006) and the
quadrilogy of Resident Evil (2002-2007) with a specific attention to the
representation of the urban space given by the directors of the films. In these
works, the cities are pictured as desert places, haunted by the remains of
humanity, by monstrous creatures that have lost any characterization as
human beings. Precisely as in many Gothic literary narratives published
during the nineteenth century, the cities portrayed in these films are uncanny
and inimical spaces, characterized by labyrinthic and claustrophobic settings
which are intended to arouse fear and paranoia in the main characters of the
stories as much as in the viewers of the film. I shall specifically argue that
such representation of the city can be interpreted as caused by the
consumerism of contemporary society. In order to do this, I shall particularly
refer to the academic debates which identify the figure of the zombie with the
(almost) non-autonomous citizen who is driven by an uncontrollable
consumerism of personal and social goods. Secondly, and by showing and
analysing some brief passages of the films, I shall apply such discourses to
the representation of the city given in these recent productions and stimulate
questions concerning the function of the city in the absence of consumerism
and the human being.

24. Sean Kimber Zombies are us: Zombiedom and Media & Film Education
within British Higher Education
Sean Kimber, University of Bournemouth
The paper will present a case for using the zombie as an analytical tool for
reflecting upon media & film education within English higher education. Using
examples from contemporary zombie films and ideas associated with
zombiedom the paper will suggest that far from being homogeneous, film
representations of the zombie and zombiedom alert our attention to a wide
range of possibilities that can productively be employed as critical lens
through which to examine contemporary higher education. The paper will
develop its argument based upon four overlapping strands. First, that the
current global climate of uncertainty and crisis has given rise to a renewed
impetus and verve within apocalyptic zombie narratives. Whilst falling short of
an apocalyptic event the current challenges facing media education within
English higher education can be understood as an allegorical manifestation of
the undermining and collapse of social institutions found within contemporary
zombie narratives. Second, the key to understanding the relationship between
tutors and students, from the tutors perspective, is to appreciate the interplay
between survivors losses and their dependency upon their views of zombies.
Third, that humanising and sympathetic representations of the zombie can
inform our understanding of students, by foregrounding their dynamism,
motivations and skills, and through an emphasis upon student-centred
approaches to learning and teaching. Fourth, higher education would befit
from stronger collaborative partnerships in learning and teaching between
students and tutors to not only maximise their collective strengths but to also
offer a unified approach to the zombifying challenges facing the subject

25. Parallel Panel 5 MB2 3.15 - 4.45 Zombie Environment and Planning B…
Chair: Marcus Leaning
Emma Dyson Space and Place in Zombie Culture: How fictional film
inspires dissent, celebration and the carnivalesque in social spaces.
Emma Dyson, University of Portsmouth
As arguably the most popular modern horror icon, it is fruitful to consider the
fictional Zombie following Robert Kastenbaum‘s discussion of Arnold Van
Gennep‘s concept of liminality. In the case of the Zombie, as both dead yet
alive, we can see the most obvious fictional example of a body as liminal,
removed from society yet returning, removed from life, yet still functioning.
The Zombie can move between areas of social interaction, and also functions
within its own space, one which cannot be categorised as easily as either-or,
alive or dead. This serves to question the social borders that living bodies
function within.
This refusal of borders and categories is also presented within the physical
presence of the Zombie breaking socially constructed areas designated for
the living and the dead, notably within film and media, but also now in the
popular phenomena of Zombie Walks. Following Walter Kendrick, we have
separated ourselves from death physically, but: ―Even as we deny that our
flesh must decay, however, we surround ourselves with fictional images of the
very fate we strive to hear nothing about‖. This paper will examine the
importance of space and conflict in Zombie film post- 1968, and how this has
been translated into social gatherings that at once celebrate the Zombie and
undermine the notion of controlled social spaces of behaviour.

26. Toby Venables „Locating the Zombie: Landscapes of the Living Dead‟
Toby Venables, Anglia Ruskin University
While the 'zombie' seems universal – appearing in many folklores and
apparently transferable to all cultures and contexts – the modern zombie story
is frequently related to contemporaneous socio-political realities, a key
example being George A Romero's Night of the Living Dead and the violent
upheavals precipitated by the Civil Rights movement.
Drawing on work by Robin Wood, André Bazin, and Adam Lowenstein, this
paper identifies a deeper tension, suggesting the modern zombie story is a
‗landscape genre‘ – like the Western, Film Noir and road horror (the key
template for which is Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) –
predominantly American, and similarly built upon the dichotomy between the
urban and the rural. The roots of this dichotomy are traced to ancient tensions
between Roman 'civilisation' and 'barbarian' tribalism.
A repeated pattern in the modern zombie story is the city being overrun,
becoming a deadly feeding ground in which the living are mere meat. They
must, therefore, take refuge in the countryside. While road horror indicates
anxieties about the rural landscape – whose cannibalistic, mutated inhabitants
prey upon lost city-dwellers – the zombie story seems to suggest a need to
reconnect with the land in order to escape living death. The ‗message‘ is
clear: cities make us zombies. Or, perhaps, they already have. To quote
Romero, speaking of the shambling, mindless denizens of the shopping mall
in Dawn of the Dead: ‗They‘re us.‘ Nevertheless, this also rekindles the
Western myth, albeit in bleaker guise – the possibility of salvation and new life
in a lawless, savage landscape.