"We are the walking dead!": Why Zombies Matter by Dr. Kyle William Bishop Southern Utah University SpColl Cedar City, Utah LD 5101 Delivered as the . S5 5 Distinguished Faculty Lecture A2 at SUU, September 4, 2012 2012 Southern Utah University Founded in 1897, Southern Utah University has evolved from a teacher training institution into a comprehensive, regional university offering specialized training and associate, baccalaureate and graduate degree programs. Its spectacular 133-acre campus is a beautiful setting for the personalized and experiential education opportunities that have become a hallmark of the SUU experience. Faculty and staff alike take pride in making certain that this tradition endures today and far into the future. The SUU community truly has something for everyone. The University is home to a wealth of cultural, social and athletic activities. As host of the Tony Award winning Utah Shakespeare Festival, the Utah Summer Games, the only Hispanic Center for Academic Excellence in Utah and 16 NCAA Division l athletic teams, SUU is a uniquely dynamic and vibrant place to be. Beyond campus, Cedar City is surrounded by many national parks, monuments, forests and wilderness areas that draw millions of visitors each year from around the globe. In a mere 40 minutes, one can access year-round golfing or ski the "greatest snow on E_arth". Those preferring the city scene can reach the glittering entertainment capital of the world, Las Vegas, in just over two hours. SUU is a fully accredited member of the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities and many of its academic programs have special accreditation or endorsement from the nation's top organizations. SUU has been recognized as one of America's Best Colleges by U.S. News and World Report, a Top 10 Best Value school by Consumers Digest and has earned the titles Best Value College and Best in the West from the Princeton Review. With more than 7,000 students and 260 faculty, SUU delivers the kind of education that is typically only found on private school campuses and does it for an affordable public institution price. For more information about SUU, visit www.suu.edu. 0 10 Dr. Kyle William Bishop Born in Cedar City, Utah, Kyle William Bishop graduated from Cedar City High School in 1992. He studied art history, music, German and English at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1998 with a BA in humanities. Bishop then attended the University of Utah and completed an MA degree in English and American studies in 2000 with an emphasis in film. Bishop went on to receive a PhD in American literature and film from the University of Arizona in 2009. He has since returned to Cedar City to become a third­ generation assistant professor at Southern Utah University, where he currently teaches courses in American literature and culture, film studies, fantasy literature and English composition. Dr. Bishop has presented and published a variety of critical essays and articles on popular culture and cinematic adaptation, including such topics as Metropolis, Night of the Living Dead, Fight Club, Buffi; the Vampire Slayer, Dawn ofthe Dead, Frankenstein, The Birds, Zombieland, and Tl1e Walking Dead. His first book, American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture, is now available from McFarland and Co., Publishers. D 2 D The Distinguished Faculty Lecture The Distinguished Faculty Honor Lecture originated with the SUV Faculty Senate and SUV President Gerald R. Sherratt in 1983. Since then, 28 SUV faculty have been selected for this honor. Each year an outstanding faculty scholar is selected to present a paper as part of the Fall Convocation Series. The scholar receives an honorarium of $1,500, awarded by the Grace Adams Tanner Center for Human Values, and is honored at a reception following the presentation. The lecture is printed, bound, and placed in the Special Collections of the Southern Utah University Library. Each Fall the Distinguished Faculty Lecture Committee, a Faculty Senate Committee composed of two faculty members from each SUV College, invites SUV faculty to submit proposals. The proposals are selected on how well they meet the announced criteria: • The proposal must evidence high standards of professional research and/or scholarship and delivery. • The lecturer should evidence contributions to the field of endeavor. • The topic should have broad appeal to the SUU community. In early Spring the Committee members review the anonymous proposals and vote on the proposal that best meets the criteria. Only the Committee Chair is aware of the faculty members identify during this review process. D3D "We are the walking dead!": Why Zombies Matter 2012 Tanner Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Kyle William Bishop On May 26, 2012, a naked 31-year-old Rudy Eugene-allegedly acting under the influence of an amphetamine cocktail known on the streets as ''bath salts"1-chewed off the forehead, nose, eyelids, and lips of Ronald Poppo, a 65-year-old homeless Miami man.2 According to police sources, the first officer on the scene "approached and, seeing what was happening ... ordered the naked man to back away. When he continued the assault, the officer shot him... The attacker failed to stop after being shot, forcing the officer to continue firing. Witnesses said they heard at least a half dozen shots." 3 Almost immediately after news of the attack went viral, bloggers and comment posters across the internet began drawing parallels between Eugene's attack and the zombie apocalypse: "This was obviously a zombie attack," wrote an anonymous reader on the Miami Herald website. "So sharpen those machetes and stock up on bullets."4 Paranoid suspicions flooded the web like a rampant infection, and the blogosphere was soon identifying Miami as the epicenter of a real zombie apocalypse.5 Just one day later, this time in New Jersey, 43-year-old Wayne Carter barricaded himself in his Hackensack home and threatened to injure himself with a knife. The two police officers who arrived on the scene ordered Carter to put down his weapon, but instead he "allegedly cut out his entrails in front of [the] police and then threw bits of his flesh and intestines at them."6 0fficers used two cans of pepper spray and a fire extinguisher in failed attempts to subdue Carter, who eventually had to be pinned down by a 6-foot fire ladder.7 Then, on Tuesday, May 29, Alexander Kinyua, a 21-year-old Morgan State University student, admitted to murdering his roommate Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie. Kinyua "allegedly confessed a shocking D4D revelation: not only had he killed Agyei-Kodie by cutting him up with a knife and then dismembered him, [but] he [also] ingested parts of the victim's brain and all of his heart." 8 Later, during the first weekend of June, Carl Jacquneaux, a 43-year-old Louisiana man, entered the yard of his neighbor, Todd Credeur, in Lafayette Parish. Angry over an unspecified domestic dispute, Jacquneaux attacked Credeur and bit a chunk of his face off.9 The increasingly alarmed and paranoid internet posts resulting from these incidents inspired an official release from the Centers for Disease Control firmly denouncing the existence of real-life zombies or any zombie-like plague. In the past, the CDC has openly embraced the zombie paradigm, using the trending popularity of the monster to market serious-if notably tongue-in-cheek-emergency preparedness plans. In fact, part of the agency's Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response website currently features a "Zombie Preparedness" section, which includes a discussion blog and promotional posters.10 Now, however, the CDC has been forced to be clear: zombies don' t exist. In an email to The Huffington Post, agency spokesperson David Daigle stated unequivocally that the "CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms)."11 Yet despite the CDC's categorical dismissal, "zombie sightings" continue, and those who believe in the plausibility of a real-life zombie apocalypse are hardly placated by any federal declaration. As reader George Broad way declares, "Right, government denies it . so honey grab the kids[;] we're heading to the mountains for the rest of our lives!" 12 What exactly is going on here? Are the walking dead really appearing among us? Or does the recent flurry of sensational headlines merely underscore the fact that we as a global community cannot help but "see" zombies everywhere? Over the past ten years, one monstrous subject has bound our collective imaginations more than any other across different cultures, generations, languages, and disciplines-the corps cadavre, the walking dead, the zombie. This fascinating creature emerged from obscurity eighty years ago, moving from Haiti to Hollywood, rising from folklore figure to film icon, and now it has 050 invaded every corner of popular culture. Once simply the star monster of B-movies and drive-in theaters, the zombie can now be found not only on stage and screen but also in books, on mobile devices, on bumper stickers, in museums, and even on the sides of our children's lunch boxes. And the zombie isn't just part of the entertainment industry or the liberal arts academy anymore; its metaphorical and allegorical power has transcended fiction and narrative to become a part of almost every discipline: political science, economics, business, medicine and health care, and the sciences. For the past decade, zombies and the narratives told around them have been more popular than ever, with films on both the big and ,;inall screen; video, board, and card games; fiction, non-fiction, and ~·ven children's books; action figures, plush dolls, and other collectibles; _ind a host of colorful metaphors and academic appropriations.