PhD student Kelly Doyle suggests zombies are symbolic of humanity's worst fears and most basic urges (Undead like me? Zombies stir sympathy, The Daily Courier, Oct. 30).
Gen Xer Clay Morgan is a history and political science teacher at three institutions in Pittsburgh.
In his 2012 book Undead: Revived, Resuscitated, and Reborn (Abingdon Press), Morgan retells in a unique way the individual accounts in the New Testament of dead people returning to life. Some of the accounts are presented in the style of a graphic novel (comic).
In a recent online interview, Morgan observes: "Thoughts of death produce haunting feelings in all of us.... People will say: I don't get the zombie thing. I don't want to read about all this stuff. That's not for me. And I do understand that a lot of these movies and TV shows are full of horrific things that some people won't want to see."
Morgan adds, "I'm not saying, in this book, that we all have to enjoy everything in popular culture. But we do need to understand what's so popular out there - and we need to ask why it's so popular, why people are so drawn to it."
David Buckna,
Kelowna