Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: ZOMBIES AND GHOSTS: MONSTERS AND SPECTRAL FIGURES IN THE SOCIAL IMAGINARY

Department: Anthropology

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Why do people believe in ghosts? How have Zombies become part of popular culture and a metaphor for disease, death and decay? How might anthropology help us understand the role these figures play within different cultures and societies globally? This course will provide a space for dialogue between anthropology, literature, culture and media in order to understand how monsters and spectral figures have become symbols of death and hauntings, but also life and possibility. We will explore the origins of monsters such as the zombies and understand how ghosts become spectral symbols of past violence, present silence and future becoming. After completing this course students will understand how and why anthropologists study the living, the dead and the undead. Students will be reading novels, as well as theoretical and ethnographic texts. Students will also be asked to draw on their own social worlds to explore and share their observations in class. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: ANTH 464. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for ANTH 664 if student has credit for ANTH 464.