The Undead Child in Popular Culture
Representations of Childhoods Past, Present, and Preserved
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 26. December 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
238 pages
978-1-032-65760-8 (ISBN)
Description
In this study of representations of children and childhood, a global team of authors explores the theme of undeadness as it applies to cultural constructions of the child.
Moving beyond conventional depictions of the undead in popular culture as living dead monsters of horror and mad science that transgress the borders between life and death, rejuvenation, and decay, the authors present undeadness as a broader concept that explores how people, objects, customs, and ideas deemed lost or consigned to the past might endure in the present. The chapters examine nostalgic texts that explore past incarnations of childhood, mementos of childhood, zombie children, spectral children, images and artefacts of deceased children, as well as states of arrested development and the inability or refusal to embrace adulthood. Expanding undeadness beyond the realm of horror and extending its meaning conceptually, while acknowledging its roots in the genre, the book explores attempts at countering the transitory nature of childhoods.
This unique and insightful volume will interest scholars and students working on popular culture and cultural studies, media studies, film and television studies, childhood studies, gender studies, and philosophy.
Moving beyond conventional depictions of the undead in popular culture as living dead monsters of horror and mad science that transgress the borders between life and death, rejuvenation, and decay, the authors present undeadness as a broader concept that explores how people, objects, customs, and ideas deemed lost or consigned to the past might endure in the present. The chapters examine nostalgic texts that explore past incarnations of childhood, mementos of childhood, zombie children, spectral children, images and artefacts of deceased children, as well as states of arrested development and the inability or refusal to embrace adulthood. Expanding undeadness beyond the realm of horror and extending its meaning conceptually, while acknowledging its roots in the genre, the book explores attempts at countering the transitory nature of childhoods.
This unique and insightful volume will interest scholars and students working on popular culture and cultural studies, media studies, film and television studies, childhood studies, gender studies, and philosophy.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Academic, Postgraduate, and Undergraduate Advanced
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
401 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-032-65760-8 (9781032657608)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Craig Martin | Debbie Olson
The Undead Child in Popular Culture
Representations of Childhoods Past, Present, and Preserved
Book
08/2024
1st Edition
Routledge
€178.00
Shipment within 10-20 days
Craig Martin | Debbie Olson
The Undead Child in Popular Culture
Representations of Childhoods Past, Present, and Preserved
E-Book
08/2024
1st Edition
Routledge
€60.99
Available for download
Craig Martin | Debbie Olson
The Undead Child in Popular Culture
Representations of Childhoods Past, Present, and Preserved
E-Book
08/2024
1st Edition
Routledge
€60.99
Available for download
Persons
Craig Martin teaches screen studies in the Department of Film, Games and Animation at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia.
Debbie Olson is an associate professor of English at Missouri Valley College, USA.
Debbie Olson is an associate professor of English at Missouri Valley College, USA.
Content
Introduction
1. "Silk is a Child's Skin: Marx, Engels, and the Modern Moloch"
2. "'That canal gees me the creeps': Haunted Bodies of Water and Geographies of Dead Childhood in the Cinema of Lynne Ramsay"
3. "Beyond Zombies: Resurrected Young People and Incongruity in Les Revenants, The Returned (US) and Resurrection"
4. "White Futures Only: Racialized Undeadness in The Last of Us"
5. "Not Quite Dead: The Function of Ghost Children in William Mumler's Spirit Photography"
6. "Nightmares about Fossils: Spectral Children, Colonial Legacies and Intergenerational Trauma in the Work of Hilary Mantel"
7. "Taken from Life": Lewis Carroll's Photographic Memory and the Cur(s)ing of Sleeping Beauties Sent to Wonderland
8. Fraught and Fragile Domesticity: Visions of the Undead Child(hood) in Walter de la Mare's Broomstick
9. "Written on the Body: Traumatic Encounters with the Dead Child in Sharp Objects (HBO, 2018)"
10. "But You're Just a Girl": The Haunting Specter of Childhood in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
11. "Undead Child, Undead Parents: 'Honor Crime' and Matricide in Yashar Kemal's To Crush the Serpent"
12. "'They Never Come Back ... as Boys': The Necropolitics of Hitler's Children in Disney's Pinocchio (1940) and Education for Death (1943)"
1. "Silk is a Child's Skin: Marx, Engels, and the Modern Moloch"
2. "'That canal gees me the creeps': Haunted Bodies of Water and Geographies of Dead Childhood in the Cinema of Lynne Ramsay"
3. "Beyond Zombies: Resurrected Young People and Incongruity in Les Revenants, The Returned (US) and Resurrection"
4. "White Futures Only: Racialized Undeadness in The Last of Us"
5. "Not Quite Dead: The Function of Ghost Children in William Mumler's Spirit Photography"
6. "Nightmares about Fossils: Spectral Children, Colonial Legacies and Intergenerational Trauma in the Work of Hilary Mantel"
7. "Taken from Life": Lewis Carroll's Photographic Memory and the Cur(s)ing of Sleeping Beauties Sent to Wonderland
8. Fraught and Fragile Domesticity: Visions of the Undead Child(hood) in Walter de la Mare's Broomstick
9. "Written on the Body: Traumatic Encounters with the Dead Child in Sharp Objects (HBO, 2018)"
10. "But You're Just a Girl": The Haunting Specter of Childhood in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
11. "Undead Child, Undead Parents: 'Honor Crime' and Matricide in Yashar Kemal's To Crush the Serpent"
12. "'They Never Come Back ... as Boys': The Necropolitics of Hitler's Children in Disney's Pinocchio (1940) and Education for Death (1943)"