Vampires, Zombies, and Christianity

"Christian archetypes in vampire and zombie myths/texts" is how I worded one topic idea in my ongoing "Research Ideas & Writing Topics" file that I carry around on my mobile phone. I've always had a thing for vampire movies, and although I'm not that into zombie film, I would occasionally watch one. The Korean movie "Train to Busan" (2016) was quite good.

"Gog and Magog consuming humans."
—Thomas de Kent's Roman de toute chevalerie,
Paris manuscript, 14th cent.

A couple of years back it occurred to me that vampires and zombies are actually reconstructions of Christian themes. Drinking the blood of Christ in order to obtain immortality may have been part of the inspiration for the Gothic vampire genre, and the biblical eschatological reference to the Gog and Magog which some have interpreted as a resurrected army of the damned who come to attack the saints and the City of God, which is part of the final battle between God and Satan in the Book of Revelation. In some of the later Alexander myths, such as Thomas of Kent's "Roman de toute chevalerie", Gog and Magog are depicted as zombie-like cannibals that hide in the dark (caves).

In any case, it turns out I'm not the only literature scholar to have noted the connection between these Gothic genres and Christianity. Oxford University Press just published a book by English literature professor Greg Garrett, called "Living with the Living Dead: The Wisdom of the Zombie Apocalypse".

I have not yet read his book, so I'm not sure how much his ideas and my own overlap, but I did listen to an interview with him, in which he discusses his book and the obsession popular culture has with zombie apocalypses and how it connects with religion. You can listen to the interview here: Zombie Time with Greg Garrett

Some things I did in September 2015

The semester started, thus I started teaching again. This semester I taught Shakespeare Comedies for the first time. I settled on Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream. In the first semester I was also required to teach Shakespeare -- then I taught tragedies. I prefer the tragedies over the comedies. And I prefer reading / watching Shakespeare over teaching it.

I bought a car.

And for Chuseok I went to Everland with some friends. They had a Halloween theme. The House of Horrors was surprisingly scary. I nearly punched or kick several of the actors. I don't think they should allow martial artists in those places.

The end of September was also the start of the annual international dance festival in Seoul. The opening show was a really fun flamenco performance.

Most of the month was spent working (lecturing) and writing my dissertation.

Here is something I wrote to someone at the start of the month.

I'm at that part of my PhD dissertation where I know what I need to do, but I'm not sure how to do it. The problem is that my original research question recently changed after a fruitful discussion with my supervisor. While I agree that the new research question is much better, the clear outline I had previously doesn't fit the new trajectory of my study. In other words, the road map I was working from has suddenly become obsolete after using it as the bedrock of my contemplations for two years, so now I'm driving down a road with just a vague idea of where I'm going.

And at the end of the month (29th) I posted this on Facebook:

5 am. I spent the whole night working on my dissertation. There were times that I spent nearly half an hour on one paragraph, struggling with some difficult parts of my argument. In the end, staying up all night was worth it though because I had an important break through towards the end (several handfuls of chocolate later). I have two more sections to my current chapter before I can start with the concluding chapter. Luckily I don't work today (Tuesday) on account of it being a public holiday, so I can sleep late and then tackle the remainder of this chapter. God-willing, I hope to finish this current chapter during Tuesday, although I cannot yet say if that is feasible or not. I have to be finished with the first draft of my dissertation before next week, as my preliminary PhD defense (first presentation) is a week from today, at which point I also have to hand in the first draft. Time is running out, but that also means that the end is in sight. But now it is time to sleep. I'm really tired.