Quiz Four

This week between Tuesday, April 29 and Monday, May 5, you will take Quiz Four for the Zombie and Literature Class.

The review video covers material to which the thirty questions refer from the novel Feed, to the films Day of the Dead, Juan of the Dead, and Land of the Dead.

Zombie Midterm Examination

 

Between Tuesday March 6 and Saturday  March 17, you will complete the midterm examination. 

Remember, too, that you have an essay to write before the semester's conclusion. I suggested a couple topics with you over the first films, asking you to complete the essay by a specific date. For the essay, you can also develop your own topic, but do get the essay to me in time for me to make comments so that you can revise your work.

You will find the link for the midterm in the Assignment Folder on Blackboard. 

You will respond to five prompts.  For each prompt, you will address it in terms of the prompt's significance.  You will write at least eight sentences for each, using examples for support of your assertions, both from the readings and the films we have seen. 

You can return to the prompts as many times as you like in the time the exam remains open.

Consider these potential prompts:

A. Discuss briefly the significance of Bela Lugosi’s character in White Zombie or the role of the zombie in I Walked With a Zombie.

B) From “Copper”: “I remember Fetus before the war took his and him and all he ever was and never was, all he ever had and all he ever might have been but wasn’t and will never be” (49).

A) Discuss three ways in which George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead affected zombie films.

B) From “In the Dust”: “Then I knew what I had to do before returning to Bindy, because I couldn’t go back to her with half-truths and suppositions. I had to make sure that we were safe and that our prison had become our refuge” (101).

A) Address three aspects of parody of the original Romero film in Dan O’Bannon’s (1985) Return of the Living Dead.

B) Address what strikes you as the significance of Seabrook’s The Magic Island for zombie cinema.

: A) Discuss the role of Barbara in the remake (1990) of Night of the Living Dead.

B) From “Delice”: “Your work is done here, ma pauve. I have no more need for you. Soon you will sing again. This time with the angels” (129).

A) Address the significance of Barbara’s comment at the conclusion of the remake of Night of the Living Dead: "They're us. We're them and they're us."

B) From “Family Business”: “Every dead person out there deserves respect. Even in death. Even when we fear them. Even when we have to kill them. They aren’t just zoms, Benny” (157).

 A) Discuss briefly the role of Peter in Dawn of the Dead with respect to the film’s argument about consumerism.

B) From “The Wind Cries Mary”: “Mary died a week ago. She’d gone outside just for a second to dump the bucket we’d been using as a toilet. A dead crow pecked her neck” 

A) or B): Discuss briefly three films or books that influenced George Romero and his first zombie film, Night of the Living Dead.

B) Discuss briefly the juxtaposition of the familiar and the unfamiliar in the context of zombie films and Freud’s theory of the “uncanny.”

 A) Discuss briefly the significance of Fran’s character in Dawn of the Dead.

B) Offer a brief analysis of the famous eye-ball scene in Fulci’s Zombie 2.

For a potential essay topic, you can write 2.5-3 double-spaced pages on one of the following two films. Make use of the critical texts in your essay:

 

OR

Quiz Three for Zombie Class

Quiz Three over Weeks Five and Six is available.

In addition to viewing the video, look over the assignments for Week Five and and Week Six and read the notes provided, for they will help you digest the material from our four texts.

The video as always, covers all the questions on this week's quiz. A good review:

Quiz Two Video Review

This week's quiz--thirty questions, multiple choice and true/false--covers the material read and viewed, but not the films shown at 5:00, over the past two weeks.
 

The video review, as always, addresses all the questions raised in the test of thirty questions over the two films, short stories, and other assigned readings.
 






Before you take Quiz Two, watch this video--take notes; read the class notes and the assigned readings:

Video Review for Quiz One

Before taking Quiz One, watch the video at the conclusion of this quick post.  

The quiz contains thirty questions, Multiple Choice and True/False.  The quiz covers the two films we watched, The White Zombie and I Walked With a Zombie, the critical readings, and four short stories--all the considerable work you have done over the past two weeks.

This quiz will be available until Monday at midnight, Feb 6.

If you have problems or questions, just contact me. 

Before you take the quiz, make sure to watch the video:

W. B. Seabrook's Zombies in Magic Island

As your three critical texts for the class indicate, W. B. Seabrook's book  The Magic Island (1929) brought the word zombie in the American lexicon and finds expression in The White Zombie and I Walked With a Zombie.

In the chapter "Dead Men Working in the Cane Fields," Seabrook relates a story about zombies told to him by his friend Polynice, who eventually takes Seabrook to see zombies.

The chapter likewise relates the reading to the author by Dr. Antoine Villiers of Article 249 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Haiti, words often repeated--the Christian priest read the description in The White Zombie,

Anyway, I thought that you might like to hear these well-known pages repeated, for they add to your appreciation of the laborers at Murder's sugar factory in The White Zombie;  in many ways, Val Lewton's less sensational I Walked with a Zombie offers a more sympathetic depiction of Voodoo in Haiti, one more in line with The Magic Island. 

In the following video (15 minutes), I read a few pages from The Magic Island: 

Timor mortis conturbat me

The fear of death disturbs me

William Dunbar, "Lament of the Makers" (1508) 

Welcome to Film Studies, a class which this term focuses on Zombie Literature, Criticism, and Cinema; we will watch as many zombie films as possible.

  As my blog page about my adventures in Toronto for the Tenth Annual Zombie Walk, A Decade of Decay, underscores, Zombies have pretty much captivated popular culture on an international scale.

You will find important material on the class web page, which will duplicate pretty much everything you will find on Blackboard--though not the quizzes and the exams, all of which you will take on Blackboard, where you will also turn in your two essays.

The web page also includes a course outline for the entire semester, with the caveat that things might well change; and I will give you plenty of warning.

You will find a more comprehensive assignment description for Week One in the Assignments Folder on Blackboard and on the class web page. 

I will also create spaces for each week and provide further information when needed--which includes videos you will find on this blog.

The first one will appear at the conclusion of this entry.

So give the syllabus your attention and enjoy the reading, watching, and the discussions. 


Welcome to the Class:






Week One:  Discussion of Reading Assignments: