The Undead Child in Popular Culture
Representations of Childhoods Past, Present, and Preserved
- 260 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Only available on web
The Undead Child in Popular Culture
Representations of Childhoods Past, Present, and Preserved
About This Book
In this study of representations of children and childhood, a global team of authors explores the theme of undeadness as it applies to cultural constructions of the child.
Moving beyond conventional depictions of the undead in popular culture as living dead monsters of horror and mad science that transgress the borders between life and death, rejuvenation, and decay, the authors present undeadness as a broader concept that explores how people, objects, customs, and ideas deemed lost or consigned to the past might endure in the present. The chapters examine nostalgic texts that explore past incarnations of childhood, mementos of childhood, zombie children, spectral children, images and artefacts of deceased children, as well as states of arrested development and the inability or refusal to embrace adulthood. Expanding undeadness beyond the realm of horror and extending its meaning conceptually, while acknowledging its roots in the genre, the book explores attempts at countering the transitory nature of childhoods.
This unique and insightful volume will interest scholars and students working on popular culture and cultural studies, media studies, film and television studies, childhood studies, gender studies, and philosophy.
Frequently asked questions
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half-Title Page
- Series Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Silk Is a Childâs Skin: Marx, Engels, and the Modern Moloch
- 2 âThat canal gees me the creepsâ: Haunted Bodies of Water and Geographies of Dead Childhood in the Cinema of Lynne Ramsay
- 3 Beyond Zombies: Resurrected Young People and Incongruity in Les Revenants, The Returned (US), and Resurrection
- 4 White Futures Only: Racialized Undeadness in The Last of Us
- 5 Not Quite Dead: The Function of Ghost Children in William Mumlerâs Spirit Photography
- 6 Nightmares about Fossils: Spectral Children, Colonial Legacies, and Intergenerational Trauma in the Work of Hilary Mantel
- 7 âTaken from Lifeâ: Lewis Carrollâs Photographic Memory and the Cur(s)ing of Sleeping Beauties Sent to Wonderland
- 8 Fraught and Fragile Domesticity: Visions of the Undead Child(hood) in Walter de la Mareâs Broomsticks
- 9 Written on the Body: Traumatic Encounters with the Dead Child in Sharp Objects (HBO, 2018)
- 10 âBut Youâre Just a Girlâ: The Haunting Spectre of Childhood in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- 11 Undead Child, Undead Parents: âHonor Crimeâ and Matricide in Yashar Kemalâs To Crush the Serpent
- 12 âThey Never Come Back ⌠as Boysâ: The Necropolitics of Hitlerâs Children in Disneyâs Pinocchio (1940) and Education for Death (1943)
- Index