Believed to have emerged in the French Caribbean based on African spirit beliefs, the zombie represents not merely the walking dead, but also a walking embodiment of the region's history and culture. In Haiti today, the zombie serves as an enduring memory of enslavement: it is defined as a reanimated body robbed of part of its soul, forced to work in sugarca ... Show More
Jan 27
Alaina M. Morgan, "Atlantic Crescent: Building Geographies of Black and Muslim Liberation in the African Diaspora" (UNC Press, 2025)
Alaina Morgan's Atlantic Crescent: Building Geographies of Black and Muslim Liberation in the African Diaspora (UNC Press, 2025) introduces the conceptual framework of the “Atlantic Crescent” to capture the overlapping encounters between Black, Afro-Caribbean, and South Asian Mus ... Show More
1h 11m
Jan 20
Kellen Hoxworth, "Transoceanic Blackface: Empire, Race, Performance" (Northwestern UP, 2024)
In Transoceanic Blackface: Empire, Race, Performance (Northwestern UP, 2024) Dr. Kellen Hoxworth presents a sweeping history of racialized performance across the Anglophone imperial world from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century. A material history of racialized perform ... Show More
44m 43s
Jan 16
Johanna Lukate, "(Dis)Entangled: Black Hair, Race, and Identity" (Coronet, 2025)
Even before we get to introduce ourselves by name, our hair has already started to tell stories about who we are, where we are from and where we are at. Our hair is tangled up in the interplay of race, gender, class, nationality, sexuality, power and beauty. It is an avid storyte ... Show More
45m 42s
Feb 2023
Patricia Saldarriaga and Emy Manini, "Infected Empires: Decolonizing Zombies" (Rutgers UP, 2022)
Let’s talk about zombies! Scholars Patricia Saldarriaga and Emy Manini have produced an engaging and important analysis of the idea of zombies, and how and why these particular monsters are omnipresent in American popular culture, especially these days. Zombies both represent and ... Show More
50m 28s
Oct 2023
268. History of Zombies: From Haiti and Voodoo to the Night of the Living Dead! (English Vocabulary Lesson)
What is a zombie? You might be thinking of the flesh-eating, undead monsters common in Hollywood, but the origin of zombies is much more fascinating than the stories in film and TV.
From the brutal slave plantations of Haiti to the development of voodoo legends and traditions, ... Show More
25m 6s
Jul 2023
When Zombies Came To Hollywood
Independent horror film ‘White Zombie’, starring Bela Lugosi, premiered in New York City’s Rivoli Theatre on July 28th, 1932. It marked the first time that zombies had featured in a Hollywood picture - albeit as the result of an evil voodoo master in Haiti rather than a condition ... Show More
12m 25s