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Zombie Fictions

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Abstract

Zombie texts like World War Z (2006), Warm Bodies (2010), or The Girl with All the Gifts (2014) have all spawned popular film adaptations, but current filmic narratives still often reiterate the traditional us-versus-them dichotomy of the genre’s classic incarnations. Zombie fictions, by comparison, offer more subtle possibilities to explore the zombie’s posthuman characteristics in their narratives. This chapter focuses specifically on the meta-critical and theoretical aspects of zombie fictions, considering these texts in the light of critical posthumanism, narratology, and a number of theoretical attempts to come to terms with our current cultural fascination with zombies. It also offers a brief historical overview of zombie fictions, reading them as a reflection of the prevalence and cultural significance of horror narratives in twenty-first-century popular culture.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Anya Heise-von der Lippe

  2. Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Anya Heise-von der Lippe

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  1. Anya Heise-von der Lippe
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, University of Hull, Hull, UK

    Kevin Corstorphine

  2. Department of Humanities, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, Rapid City, SD, USA

    Laura R. Kremmel

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Heise-von der Lippe, A. (2018). Zombie Fictions. In: Corstorphine, K., Kremmel, L. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97406-4_17

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