Date/Time: Wednesday 28th February 2018, 4:00-5:00pm

Venue: Research Beehive 2.22 Newcastle University

Dr James Scorer, Senior Lecturer in Latin American Cultural Studies at the Univeristy of Manchester joins us to talk about Zombies and the City in Latin American Comics as part of the CLACS visiting speaker series.

 This event is open to everyone and no registration is neccessary.

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.