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Dr. Kyle Bishop (Southern Utah University, Professor of English): “The Stalking Dead: Zombies, Freud, and the Uncanny Valley.”

Oct. 28, 2014 – 4:30 pm

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STALKING DEAD PART I

STALKING DEAD PART 2

STALKING DEAD PART 3

Freud theorized the concept of das Unheimliche – the ‘uncanny’  – as images and impulses that use their cognitive dissonance to affect a return of the repressed, a creeping awareness of those frightening things we once knew but have since forgotten. A particularly insidious example of the uncanny are zombies, liminal creatures both alive and dead, that abjectly remind us of the thing we strive to repress most – our own inevitable mortality. These poignant momento mori haunt us, pursuing our repressive psyche more effectively than they pursue their feckless victims, forcing us to confront not only our impending deaths but a host of other fears and anxieties.

Dr. Kyle Bishop is America’s most recognized authority on Zombies in U.S. popular culture. His eclectic scholarship, which has captured the attention of academics and media worldwide, spans zombie studies, film and screen studies, American literature, African-American literature, and genre fiction. His forthcoming book, Zombies Among Us: Manifestations of the Walking Dead in Post-9/11 Popular Culture, will be released in 2015; his popular American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture, first appeared in 2010. In addition to publishing numerous book chapters and articles, Dr. Bishop has given interviews and media appearances for the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Huffington Post Live, Wired magazine and other leasing media outlets. He has also appeared in many documentaries and television series. Dr. Bishop is currently Professor and Chair of the English department at Southern Utah University, where he received the Tanner Distinguished Faculty Lecturer award in 2012 and Distinguished Educator Award in 2010. The Multidisciplinary Psychoanalytic Research Cluster is thrilled to welcome Dr. Bishop as our inaugural 2014-2015 ‘Freudian Sips’ Research Talk Series speaker.

This event is sponsored by Sponsored by UC Davis Multidisciplinary Psychoanalytic Research Cluster (Davis Humanities Institute). Co-sponsored by the STS Program and Dept of English.