Zombie Law Literature

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

The course takes up issues of the living dead in a law and humanities context. Zombies appear in the law in a number of areas, including property law, abortion law, and constitutional law. Zombie laws and theories revivify to control legal discourse while legal scholars press the idea of the zombie apocalypse into service to reimagine constitutions and to debate rights discourse. The course focuses on representation, on examining how law is represented in this very different context, drawing on theoretical texts, case law, novels, poems, drama, courthouse architecture, the Supreme Court, films, and other cultural artifacts. Zombies are creatures with a drive to consume that crowds out all other emotions. Could one argue that the law itself has zombie qualities? Texts may include essays by Peter Goodrich, Susan Bandes, Duncan Kennedy, Patricia Williams; novels like Defoe’s Plague Year, Pride and Prejudice; Pride and Prejudice and Zombies; World War Z; and Zone One; and films and tv series such as Night of the Living Dead; Z Nation; Black Summer; and The Walking Dead.