Abstract
The figure of the zombie carries death and decay into a world obsessed with medical healing and health. Zombies, as they exist in contemporary popular culture, are an illness taken to its extreme, one that is highly infectious and cannot be healed. Moreover, tales of reanimated bodies, from Mary Shelleys Frankenstein (1818) through to The Walking Dead (comic 2003-; television 2010-) have long articulated topical concerns around medical science, scientific hubris, the abuse of knowledge and power, and the boundaries between the living and the dead. Fiction set in earlier periods, the Edwardian period in this case, likewise enables discourse on our contemporary concerns through processes of comparison, contrast, analogy, metaphor, and defamiliarization.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Walking Med |
| Subtitle of host publication | Zombies and the Medical Image |
| Editors | Lorenzo Servitje, Sherryl Vint |
| Publisher | The Pennsylvania State University Press |
| Chapter | 3 |
| Pages | 54-70 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-0-271-07711-6, 978-0-271-07712-3 |
| Publication status | Published - 2016 |
Keywords
- Zombie concept
- medical healing
- health
- Living
- dead people