Notes for 2 November 2015

LITCS 114
Teaching Associate: Patrick Mooney
Bldg. 494, room 160B
Fall 2015

On 28 Days Later
- OK: first, talk to me about it as an instance of postapocalyptic narrative. What tropes does it invoke?
  - What is/are the revelation(s) that it makes?
- Is it a zombie film?
  - What are the common tropes of a zombie film? What do you take to be necessary aspects of this genre?
  - What makes 28 Days Later different?
  - What makes it similar?
  - What makes it different?
  - Why might Danny Boyle have wanted to distance himself from the zombie genre?
    - clip from Zombi 2
    - OK, what about The Evil Dead trilogy?
- What does the realism angle tell us about the animal-rights activists in the beginning of the film? How are we supposed to take their actions?
  - What about Jim's insistence that there's always a government!?
  - What does the realism angle tell us about Major West's intentions for Hannah and Selena?
- Why does Selena, the early proponent of realism, suddenly go all weepy on Hannah's behalf when they arrive at the military compound?
- Parallels with Wyndham?
  - Jim waking up in the hospital, of course.
  - Frequent shots of highway signs; cf. Wyndham, p. 159: There were signposts which pointed to Exeter & The West, and other places, as if they still pursued their habitual lives.
  - What about the ending? (cf. Wyndham, p. 164: Just put the Americans in the jam-tomorrow-pie-in-the-sky department awhile, will you.)
  - What else?
  - My general intent here, of course, is to encourage you to think about strategies for adoption/adaptation/appropriation for your own writing.
On Catherine Wells's Artie's Angels:
- What purposes does narrative serve in this story? What directions does it lead? What precedents does it cite?
- What are the forms of government in KanHab? Who's in charge?
- What functions (social, narrative, other) does Artie's Code serve?
As you begin reading Blindness ...
- Think about the effects on the text of characters without names, and about Saramago's own statements about names in the first seven chapters.
- Look at sentence and paragraph structure. What does it accomplish?
- Think about the deployment of proverbs, commonplaces, and other irreducible chunks of text.
Today's whiteboard snapshots
- 28 Days Later as response to Triffids; postapocalyptic tropes in 28 Days
- Is 28 Days Later a zombie film?
Giving credit where credit is due ...
- Much of what I know about zombie narratives comes from conversations with my friend Steven Pokornowksi and from reading I've done that follows up on those conversations.
- You can find him on Twitter or read his research blog.
- You can also read his notes for the guest lecture he gave last time I taught this class. Particularly notable: a list of landmark zombie-genre moments; suggested reading and viewing for those who may want to follow up.