Dharma of the Dead: Zombies, Mortality and Buddhist Philosophy

244 Pages·2018·2.24 MB·English

by  Christopher M Moreman

Dharma of the Dead
CONTRIBUTIONSTOZOMBIESTUDIES
WhiteZombie:AnatomyofaHorrorFilm.GaryD.Rhodes.2001
TheZombieMovieEncyclopedia.PeterDendle.2001
AmericanZombieGothic:TheRiseandFall(andRise)
oftheWalkingDeadinPopularCulture.KyleWilliamBishop.2010
BackfromtheDead:RemakesoftheRomero
ZombieFilmsasMarkersofTheirTimes.KevinJ.Wetmore,Jr.2011
GenerationZombie:EssaysontheLivingDead
inModernCulture.EditedbyStephanieBolukandWylieLenz.2011
Race,OppressionandtheZombie:EssaysonCross-CulturalAppropriations
oftheCaribbeanTradition.EditedbyChristopherM.Moreman
andCoryJamesRushton.2011
ZombiesAreUs:EssaysontheHumanityoftheWalkingDead.
EditedbyChristopherM.MoremanandCoryJamesRushton.2011
TheZombieMovieEncyclopedia,Volume2:2000–2010.PeterDendle.2012
GreatZombiesinHistory.EditedbyJoeSergi.2013(graphicnovel)
UnravelingResidentEvil:EssaysontheComplexUniverse
oftheGamesandFilms.EditedbyNadineFarghaly.2014
“We’reAllInfected”:EssaysonAMC’sTheWalkingDead
andtheFateoftheHuman.EditedbyDawnKeetley.2014
ZombiesandSexuality:EssaysonDesireandtheLivingDead.
EditedbyShakaMcGlottenandSteveJones.2014
…ButIfaZombieApocalypseDidOccur:EssaysonMedical,
Military,Governmental,Ethical,EconomicandOtherImplications.
EditedbyAmyL.ThompsonandAntonioS.Thompson.2015
HowZombiesConqueredPopularCulture:TheMultifariousWalking
Deadinthe21stCentury.KyleWilliamBishop.2015
ZombifyingaNation:Race,GenderandtheHaitianLoasonScreen.
ToniPressley-Sanon.2016
LivingwithZombies:SocietyinApocalypseinFilm,Literature
andOtherMedia.ChasePielakandAlexanderH.Cohen.2017
RomancingtheZombie:EssaysontheUndeadasSignificant“Other.”
EditedbyAshleySzanterandJessicaK.Richards.2017
TheWrittenDead:EssaysontheLiteraryZombie.
EditedbyKyleWilliamBishopandAngelaTenga.2017
TheCollectedSonnetsofWilliamShakespeare,Zombie.
WilliamShakespeareandChasePielak.2018
DharmaoftheDead:Zombies,Mortalityand
BuddhistPhilosophy.ChristopherM.Moreman.2018
TheSubversiveZombie:SocialProtestandGender
inUndeadCinemaandTelevision.ElizabethAiossa.2018
Dharma of the Dead
Zombies, Mortality and
Buddhist Philosophy
Christopher M. Moreman
CONTRIBUTIONSTOZOMBIESTUDIES
Series Editor Kyle William Bishop
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina
ALSoByCHRiSToPHERM. MoREMAN
ANDFRoMMCFARLAND
Race, Oppression and the Zombie: Essays on
Cross-Cultural Appropriations of the Caribbean
Tradition (coeditor, with Cory James Rushton, 2011)
Zombies Are Us: Essays on the Humanity of the
Walking Dead(coeditor, with Cory James Rushton, 2011)
ISBN (print) 978-1-4766-7249-6
ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4766-3296-4
LiBRARyoFCoNGRESSCATALoGuiNGDATAAREAvAiLABLE
BRiTiSHLiBRARyCATALoGuiNGDATAAREAvAiLABLE
© 2018 Christopher M. Moreman. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover images © 2018 iStock
Printed in the united States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
FortheganginMontreal:
Mark, Andy, Beaver, Fiore, Rachel,
P- Timm, P- McLean, Eric, and Big Al
In memoriam
George A. Romero
1940–2017
Acknowledgments
Thisbookhasbeenalongtimeincoming,andmanypeoplehavelis-
tened to my ideas, read some of my work, offered suggestions, and/or
watched a lot of zombie fiction with me. Primary among these folks are
my old friends in Montreal, to whom i dedicate the book. other friends
and colleagues that have also supported this project in a variety of ways
include Jennifer Eagan, Andrew Pierson, Robert Farrow, Robert Kennedy,
Dee Andrews, Barbara Hall, Craig Derksen and David Larson. Thanks to
you all. Additionally, the participants of a writing circle at CSuEB also
offered great insight in very early drafts of parts of this book, and thanks
go out to them as well—Aline Soules, Christina Chin-Newman, E. Maxwell
Davis, Monika Sommerhalter and Sarah Taylor.
Kathy Kaiser from Editcetera contributed some excellent editorial
comment, and i am, as ever, grateful to the anonymous reviewers whose
feedback helped to improve the finished product. My university, California
State university, East Bay, has also offered much appreciated support in
the form of two Faculty Support Grants, a summer stipend from the Dean
of the College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences, and a sabbatical leave,
all of which combined to make this work possible.
of course, Deena Rymhs remains a rock of support and fount of inspi-
ration.
vi
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vi
Introduction 1
Chapter one
The Haitian origins of the Zombie 21
Chapter Two
The Evolution of the Cinematic Zombie 42
Chapter Three
Embodied Death 90
Chapter Four
Zombies and the Buddhist Meditation on Death 138
Chapter Notes 183
Bibliography 207
Filmography 225
Index 229
vii
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introduction
iwanttostartoutbygettingdirectlytothepointofmybook,andto
give you, the reader, a sense of just where i’m headed. There is a wide range
of interpretations of the zombie. Many of the critics and scholars presenting
these ideas nod to the fact that, on the surface, the zombie is a representation
of death itself, but they go on to say that this is obvious and that, in fact,
there is much more to the zombie. Most scholars apply one or more of a
range of culturally and temporally specific fears, sometimes called “socio-
phobics” (not to be confused with a fear of social situations!), to the genre.1
Some of these sociophobics include the collapse of the nuclear suburban
family, the vietnam War (or war in general), terrorism, AiDS, and on and
on. Particularly, Marxist theorists argue that the zombie is really a con-
demnation of consumer society, an explanation supported directly by some
filmmakers;George Romero intentionally adds such social commentary to
his films, especially in his second and later Deadfilms. Critical theory also
allows for subsequent arguments in terms of race and gender, both of which
have been applied liberally to zombie films. The emphasis on reading bodies
as inscribed by culture and society has led to the posthumanist turn, which,
like postmodernism, is by its nature somewhat difficult to define succinctly.
in “reading” the literally broken bodies of zombies, critical theorists and
posthumanists use their particular lens(es) to see them as indicative of a
breakage in sociocultural norms. Essentially, posthumanists see an evolution
of the concept of the human beyond earlier humanist assumptions, which
themselves grew out of a secularized Christian view of human exception-
alism. Typically, this evolution involves expanding human exceptionalism
to other nonhuman agents, be they animal, robotic, spiritual, or divine.
1