Dead, White and Blue

The Zombie and American National Identity

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by Aaron W. Clayton

Type

Studies

Subject

Genre > Horror

Keywords

zombies, United States, ideology

Publishing date

2023

Publisher

McFarland & Co

Collection

Contributions to Zombie Studies

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 207 pages
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-1-4766-8493-2

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Book Presentation:
Science fiction and horror television shows predict how the world might be different if zombies were real, or if artificial intelligence could develop consciousness. Pop culture critics reveal that these not-quite humans are often proxies for race, and the post-apocalyptic landscapes set the stage for reimagining social and political institutions.

This book advances horror scholarship by placing those stories within a long tradition of mythologizing U.S. history. It demonstrates how Disney's Zombies reenacts the civil rights movement, how The Walking Dead fulfills Thoreau's fantasy against the backdrop of founding a new nation, and how Westworld permits visitors to experience the Old West while bearing witness to Indian Removal. Each of these narratives imagines a future that retells the past. The chapters within look at that tradition in order to understand the present.

About the Author:
Aaron W Clayton is professor of English at Frederick Community College in Frederick, Maryland.

Press Reviews:
"Clayton has provocatively situated a fresh range of zombie and zombie-adjacent texts in long-standing nationalist discourses within the American psyche. The analysis demonstrates the long reach of the zombie mythos in ideological roots of repression and resistance, unpacked with insight and wit."―Peter Dendle, author of The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia

See the publisher website: McFarland & Co