Stirling University Presents

Biography:

 

Kelly Gardner is in the final year of research for a PhD on the development of sentience in contemporary zombie narratives. She received an MLitt in The Gothic Imagination from the University of Stirling, where she has continued to pursue her research. She is a feature writer for Zombie Guide Online Magazine, and a contributor to The Gothic Imagination Blog, hosted by the University of Stirling. Her forthcoming publications are concerned with zombie survival-guides in the space of apocalypse, and the use of sound in zombie themed media.

 

My Topic: “I, Zombie”: The Development of Sentience in Contemporary Zombie Narratives"

 

The zombie has been a popular figure of the horror genre since the first rumblings of zombieism emerged from William Seabrooks’ travelogue of Haiti in 1929. The Magic Island detailed the vacant eyes of Voodooed slaves toiling in the sugarcane fields at the hand of a Houngan, voodoo master. The figure has seen numerous character developments over the past eighty-five years, but none more antithetical than the emergence of zombie sentience. This paper will explore the recent development of the sentient zombie, and subsequent zombie selfhood and  subjectivity, expressed in two contemporary zombie narratives: S. G. Browne’s novel Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament (2009) and BBC3 Television series In the Flesh (2013-2014).