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Infected Empires
Decolonizing Zombies
by Patricia Saldarriaga and Emy Manini
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Book Presentation:
Given the current moment—polarized populations, increasing climate fears, and decline of supranational institutions in favor of a rising tide of nationalisms—it is easy to understand the proliferation of apocalyptic and dystopian elements in popular culture. Infected Empires examines one of the most popular figures in contemporary apocalyptic film: the zombie. This harbinger of apocalypse reveals bloody truths about the human condition, the wounds of history, and methods of contending with them. Infected Empires considers parallels in the zombie genre to historical and current events on different political, theological and philosophical levels, and proposes that the zombie can be read as a figure of decolonization and an allegory of resistance to oppressive structures that racialize, marginalize, disable, and dispose of bodies. Studying films from around the world, including Latin America, Asia, Africa, the US, and Europe, Infected Empires presents a vision of a global zombie that points toward a posthuman and feminist future.
About the authors:
PATRICIA SALDARRIAGA is a professor of Luso-Hispanic studies at Middlebury College, Vermont. She is the author of Los espacios del ‘Primero Sueño’ de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and co-editor (with M. Júdice, I. Araújo-Branco, and R. Marques) of Sor Juana e Portugal.EMY MANINI is an independent scholar based in Seattle, Washington.
Press Reviews:
"A brilliant cartography of the zombie film, elegantly crafted, theoretically informed and ambitious in its transnational sweep and decolonial focus." -- Cynthia Steele ― author of Politics, Gender, and the Mexican Novel, 1968-1988
"A fascinating and rigorous study that invites us to analyze our dreams and fears, the contemporary effects of global power and coloniality, necropolitics, today’s structures of oppression, and certainly the very essence of our own humanity. Patricia Saldarriaga and Emy Manini have written a book on zombies that will stand the test of time; their reading decolonizes and queers identity, the present, the future, horror fiction, and most definitely: our understanding of history." -- Oswaldo Estrada ― author of Troubled Memories: Iconic Mexican Women and the Traps of Representation
The Page 99 Test: Patricia Saldarriaga and Emy Manini's "Infected Empires" ― The Page 99 Test
See the publisher website: Rutgers University Press
> From the same authors:
Monsters vs. Patriarchy (2025)
Toxic Imagination in Global Horror Cinema
by Patricia Saldarriaga and Emy Manini
> On a related topic:
The Post-Zombie (2025)
Essays on the Evolving Undead
Dir. C. Wylie Lenz, Angela Tenga and Kyle William Bishop
The Politics of Monstrous Figures in Contemporary Cinema (2025)
Witches, Zombies, and Cyborgs Re-enchanting the Ends of the World
Postracial Fantasies and Zombies (2024)
On the Racist Apocalyptic Politics Devouring the World
The Anthropocene and the Undead (2024)
Cultural Anxieties in the Contemporary Popular Imagination
Dir. Simon Bacon
Transnational Zombie Cinema, 2010 to 2020 (2023)
Readings in a Mutating Tradition
Prepare for Zombies, Survive a Flood (2023)
Natural Disaster Lessons from Undead Cinema
The Subversive Zombie (2018)
Social Protest and Gender in Undead Cinema and Television
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