Veronica Daniel Kobs, Centro Universitário Campos de Andrade, Brasil:
Analyzing remediation and parody via the influence of mass culture in two Inter-American case studies, this article examines the figure of the transnational zombie in updating the genres of fantasy and horror. I first compare Pedro Vieira’s parodic mashup novel Memorias Desmortas de Brás Cubas (2010) to its hypotext, Machado de Assis’ Memorias Póstumas de Brás Cubas (1881), one of the foundational works of Brazilian literature. While the source text famously features a deceased narrator, Vieira’s genre-bending sequel transforms the narrator into a zombie that reengages with Assis’ fictional characters, deconstructing the original practice of defamiliarization in the classic novel. Thereafter, I trace a connection between this process and the reconfiguration of zombies in audiovisual culture, relating the protagonist of Santa Clarita Diet (2017) to the monsters in George Romero‘s films. I draw on Tzvetan Todorov’s and Selma Rodrigues’ approaches to narrative estrangement and Zygmunt Bauman’s theorization of the rise of hyperindividualism as a consequence of globalization. In the process, the “new Gothic” emerges as an aesthetic and discursive strategy in crisis scenarios, allowing the zombie to be understood as a vehicle for adapting the conflicts and uncertainties that characterize contemporary society.