History 2186A/B Study Guide - Winter 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes -
12 Oct 2018
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History 2186A/B
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
ZOMBIE APOCOLYPSE LECTURE ONE
Introduction
History
Zombie entered the language in 1918 in Brazil, but it probably has its roots in Africa.
The word is heavily tied to Haiti (Saint-Domingue). When Haiti was a slave nation it had
a very high death rate, about ½ the slaves would die so the French would bring in more
slaves and the death toll would continue to increase.
The slaves believed that if you died a slave you were denied an afterlife and eternal
peace.
☼ Essentially if you died a slave you became one of the undead; a type of Zombie.
☼ In this way the word is a type of personification of the struggles of Haitian slaves.
From 1971-1804 the slaves liberated themselves and Haiti became the 1st independent
black republic in the world. Obviously, the white people weren’t too happy about this so
they demonized the black republic
☼ They played up the culture from one of normalcy to a scary and wild one where
human sacrifice and cataclysm was performed. They played into the superstition
and zombie history of this nation
☼ The term Zombie then, becomes combined with the Haitian religion, a type of
voodoo
Vokor animate corpses to use as their workers, recycling the old Zombie myth, but here
the zombies are not free, they are controlled by a witch doctor.
The zombies are now a post colonial image where the undead are roaming the streets
controlled by witch doctors.
☼ This is the way we receive zombies; a mixture of voodoo, vokor and black magic.
We then get it in writing; a travel book by William Seabrook called the magic island
written in 1929
☼ In this book he reports seeing Zombies working in the field in Haiti.
☼ A chapter from this book is turned into a movie where a white couple travels to
Haiti and a plantation owner turns the woman into a zombie in order for him to
make her his bride.
Since this point they have become omnipresent.
But now in modern culture zombies have become synonymous with any apocalyptic
event.
A book called Theories of international politics and zombies by Daniel W. Drezner uses
this to promote disaster awareness. Topics that are important but dry need to be
introduced in interesting ways; emergency training campaigns use zombie apocalypse as
advertising.
☼ Zombies initiate fear.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
The Worlds Top Ten Phobias
1. Snakes
2. Spiders
3. Closed spaces
4. Another person
5. Heights
6. Darkness
7. Thunderstorms
8. Flying
9. Dogs
10. Dentist
America’s Top Ten Phobias
1. Spiders
2. Social situations
3. Flying
4. Open spaces
5. Confined spaces
6. Heights
7. Vomit
8. Cancer
9. Thunderstorms
10. Death
There is a crucial difference between individual fear and population fear so we need to use
different measures. For this, researchers used certain prompts…
Corrupt government officials → 60.6%
Terrorist attack → 41%
Not having enough money for the future → 39.9%
Terrorism → 38.5%
Government restrictions on firearms and ammunition → 38.5%
People I love dying → 38.1%
Economic/financial collapse → 37.5%
Identity theft → 37.1%
People I love becoming seriously ill → 35.9%
The Affordable Health Care Act/Obamacare → 35.5%
These group fears become forms of paranoia. There is always something to fear, Jews,
Witches, Aliens, but why are these things scary? Why are zombies scary?
1. They’re not rational
2. They’re unpredictable
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
