Abstract

The paper will present a case for using the zombie as an analytical tool for reflecting upon media education within English higher education. It will examine how zombies have become part of the cultural landscape from their metamorphosis from Haitian folklore to the current zombie revival. Whilst often maligned as ephemeral zombie films can offer valuable, complex and contradictory insights into the world around us (Bishop 2010). Zombie films constitute important cultural texts that actively engage with the desires and fears of the historical period and geographical locations within which they are produced, circulated and consumed. They do not however just act as a barometer, they dynamically and productively work with, and though, the consequences of actions taken in relation to these shifting desires and fears. Using examples from a range of contemporary zombie films and ideas associated with zombiedom the paper will suggest that far from being homogeneous, film representations of the zombie and zombiedom alert our attention to a wide range of possibilities that can productively be employed as critical lens through which to examine contemporary higher education and the relationship between tutors and students. The paper will develop its argument based upon four overlapping strands. First, that the current global climate of uncertainty and crisis has given rise to a renewed impetus and verve within apocalyptic zombie narratives. Whilst falling short of an apocalyptic event the current challenges facing media education within English higher education can be understood as an allegorical manifestation of the undermining and collapse of social institutions found within contemporary zombie narratives (BIS, 2011). Second, the key to understanding the relationship between tutors and students, from the tutors perspective, is to appreciate the interplay between tutors losses and their dependency upon their views of students. An outcome is the potential ‘othering’ discourses of tutors as a defensive mechanism in the face of institutional and national uncertainties and power struggles. Third, that humanising and sympathetic representations of the zombie can inform our understanding of students, by foregrounding their dynamism, motivations and skills, and through an emphasis upon student-centred approaches to learning and teaching (Ramsden, 2003). Fourth, media education within English higher education would befit from stronger collaborative partnerships in learning and teaching between students and tutors to not only maximise their collective strengths but to also offer a unified approach