Zombies in Afro-Caribbean Culture by Dr. Christopher Micklethwait
Oct. 18, 6-7 p.m., Fleck Hall, Room 305This talk expands on the origins of the Hollywood zombie by tracing it back to the crucial period of the U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915-1934). During this period, Haitian writers belonging to the Indigènes and Griots movements developed ideas about their local folk culture and the voodoo religion as the basis of a program of cultural resistance and national modernization. Micklethwait will connect these writers' ideas about Haitian culture to the transmission of the zombie into American popular culture and discuss the implications of slavery and colonialism bound up in these images of the undead.
For more info, contact: Jennifer Phlieger, 512-637-5648