Advance ticket sales have ended but plenty of additional tickets remain available at the door.
Profs and Pints Metro Detroit presents: “Meet the Living Dead,” a look at zombies’ Haitian origins and Hollywood incarnations, with Chera Kee, associate professor of film and media studies at Wayne State University, teacher of a popular course on zombies, and author of Not Your Average Zombie: Rehumanizing the Undead from Voodoo to Zombie Walks.
‘Tis the season for bumping into zombies. You’ll see them on your TV screen and at parties and, come Halloween night, might even find a few outside your front door.
Where did they all come from? How did they become so ubiquitous? Have they always thought of us as a protein source?
Take refuge in Hamtramck’s Planet Ant theatre to hear such questions tackled by metro Detroit’s leading zombie expert, Professor Chera Kee of Wayne State University. She has been researching and writing about zombies since 2004, teaches popular courses on zombies and horror, and is the author of what just might just be the ultimate book on the undead friends. She’s about as familiar with zombies as one can be without having to fend them off.
Dr. Kee will discuss how today’s zombies arose from Haitian Vodou tales of zombis described as soulless creatures controlled by menacing masters. Back then they were mainly pitied, and Haitians feared being turned into them far more than being attacked by them.
Zombies first appeared in American popular culture in the late 1920s, initially depicted here as “voodoo” slaves. Later, they briefly popped up as “zuvembies” to circumvent of 1950s ban on the appearance of zombies, werewolves, and vampires in comic books.
It was the horror film director George A. Romero who gave rise to the zombies we’re most familiar with today. His 1968 film Night of the Living Dead changed popular perceptions of zombies by portraying them as reanimated corpses hungry for human flesh. Zombiism went from being caused by a spell to being the product of infection, causing its rapid spread and leaving no one safe.
From there zombies evolved into walkers, runners, and even “talkers.” A multitude of them wander our screens and pages today.
Exploring several variations on the zombie story, Dr. Kee will discuss how this creature has been shaped and reshaped over the last century, popping up in unexpected places and rarely acting in the ways we might expect.
You’re encouraged to attend costumed as a zombie to escape the attention of any wandering outside. (Advance tickets: $12. Door: $15, or $13 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: A still from George A. Romero's classic 1968 zombie film Night of the Living Dead.