“LIFE AFTER PEOPLE”: ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE AND THE STRUCTURES OF THE POST-HUMAN GLOBAL IMAGINARY

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24193/subbphilo.2019.1.12

Keywords:

post-humanism; dystopia; apocalypticism; 9/11; cinematography; global (dis)order; vampires; zombies; global theory; hypermodernity; disjuncture.

Abstract

Life after People: Zombie Apocalypse and the Structures of the Post-Human Global Imaginary. The paper examines post-humanist representations in Anglo-American film productions from a perspective informed by global and hypermodern cultural theory. It is an enquiry into aspects of dystopian sensibility featuring in global cinema, which are seen as manifest in the prolific zombie genre of the post-apocalyptic strand. It is premised on the assumption that global society is endemically marred by a catastrophic horizon of expectation, whose most congenial form of expression is dystopia, a genre on the rise worldwide, especially productive in Anglo-American cinematic practice. Drawing on global cultural theory, I seek to narrow down the enquiry into dystopian modes and bring the zombie dominant to bear on what I construe as the post-apocalyptic imagination of globality.

REZUMAT. Viața după dispariția omului : apocalipsa zombie și structurile imaginarului postuman în era globală. Lucrarea analizează reprezentări postumaniste în producții cinematografice anglo-americane din perspectiva teoriei culturale globale și a hipermodernității. Demersul își propune să trateze aspecte ale sensibilității distopice manifestate în cinematografia globală, aspecte considerate reprezentative pentru filmele zombie din cadrul genului postapocaliptic. Premisa lucrării este dată de teza conform căreia societatea globală este caracterizată de un orizont de așteptare catastrofic, al cărei forme predilecte de expresie este distopia, un gen care înregistrează, în general, o creștere spectaculoasă pe glob și, în special, în cinematografia anglo-americană. Demersul este fundamentat de o grilă teoretică ancorată în teoria globală și vizează fenomenul zombie perceput ca o dominantă a imaginarului postapocaliptic.

Cuvinte cheie: postumanism; distopie; spirit apocaliptic; cinema; dezordine globală; vampir; zombie; teorie globală; hipermodernitate; disjuncție.

Author Biography

Adriana NEAGU, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Contact address: adriananeagu@lett.ubbcluj.ro

Adriana NEAGU, MA, MPhil, is Associate Professor of Anglo-American Studies at Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Department of Applied Modern Languages. She is the author of Continental Perceptions of Englishness, Foreignness and the Global Turn (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017), Sublimating the Postmodern Discourse: Toward a Post-Postmodern Fiction in the Writings of Paul Auster and Peter Ackroyd (Lucian Blaga University Press, 2001), In the Future Perfect: The Rise and Fall of Postmodernism (Lucian Blaga University Press, 2001), and of numerous critical and cultural theory articles. Dr Neagu has been the recipient of several pre- and postdoctoral research awards. Previous academic affiliations include University of Oxford, University of Bergen, University of Edinburgh, University of London and University of East Anglia. Contact address: adriananeagu@lett.ubbcluj.ro

References

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Night of the Living Dead. George A. Romero, 1968.

Days Later. Danny Boyle, 2002.

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The Walking Dead. Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, 2010.

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Wilke, Sabine. “Anthropocenic Poetics: Ethics and Aesthetics in a New Geological Age.” In Trischelr, Helmuth (ed). Anthropocene: Exploring the Future of the Age of Humans. RCC Perspectives no. 3, 2013, pp. 67–74.

STUDIA UBB PHILOLOGIA, Volume 64 (LXIV), No. 1, March 2019

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Published

2019-03-29

How to Cite

NEAGU, A. (2019). “LIFE AFTER PEOPLE”: ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE AND THE STRUCTURES OF THE POST-HUMAN GLOBAL IMAGINARY. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia, 64(1), 159–172. https://doi.org/10.24193/subbphilo.2019.1.12

Issue

Volume 64, No. 1, 2019

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Articles

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