Date/Time: Wednesday 20th February 2019 4:00-5:00pm

Venue: Armstrong Building G.08, Newcastle University

James Scorer, University of Manchester, Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies

This seminar is co-convened with the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. It is free and open for everyone to attend, no registration necessary. 

Abstract
In this paper I will explore recent Latin American comics that use the zombie or the vampire as part of their vision of the region’s cityscapes. In contemporary popular culture, the zombie and other figures of the undead have been effective symbolic carriers of a number of issues – contagion, immigration, inequality, unemployment, protest, etc. – that strike at the heart of contemporary urban life. Referring to works set in Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Ciudad Juárez and Santiago de Chile, I will argue that comics, which are themselves experiencing a period of viral expansion in Latin America, are an ideal cultural form for examining these figures, since they are based around expansive networks of images that are simultaneously singular and multiple. As a result, comics offer us the means to think through both the threat and the promise of the zombie