Description: "Challenging the human understanding of life and death, the zombie figure represents a fragmentation of personhood. From its earliest appearances in literature, the zombie characterized a human being that was no longer an indivisible whole, embodying the ontological debate over which elements of personhood are most uniquely human. Through its literary evolution, the zombie's "missing element" gradually approached a finer definition, as narratives moved beyond highlighting metaphysically opaque concepts like "soul" or "will." Studying over a century of American literary history, this text explores how zombies translate cultural concepts and definitions of personhood. Chapters intricately detail how literary zombies have long presented narratives of American cultural self-examination"--
Brief description: T. May Stone teaches literature and composition classes at Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell.
Review Quotes: "With Reading the Great American Zombie, Stone dives deep into the surprisingly complex history of zombie literature, unearthing some forgotten or overlooked texts and stories and asking us to reconsider what the 'living dead' are or can be."-Kyle Bishop, author of The Written Dead: Essays on the Literary Zombie