ZOMBIES

Hide caption Released in 1932, White Zombie was the first film in the zombie genre. Previous Next LMPC/Getty Images

Hide caption U.S. Marines marching in Haiti, 1934. The United States invaded Haiti in 1915. Previous Next Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Hide caption Night Of The Living Dead reinvigorated the zombie genre when it was released in 1968. Previous Next LMPC/Getty Images 1 of 3 i View slideshow

Zombies have become a global phenomenon — there have been at least ten zombie movies so far this year. Which made us wonder, where did this fascination for the undead come from? This week, how one of our favorite monsters is a window into Haiti's history and the horrors of slavery.

If you would like to read more about the topic:

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Guests for this episode:

PATRICK SYLVAIN (Lecturer and doctoral candidate at Brandeis University)

ELIZABETH McALISTER (Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Wesleyan University)

Sources for this episode:

Bakke, Gretchen. 2010. "Dead White Men: An Essay on the Changing Dynamics of Race in American Action Cinema." Anthropological Quarterly 83(2):401-428.

Beal, Timothy K. 2002. Religion and Its Monsters. New York: Routledge.

Dyer, Richard. 1988. "White." Screen 29(4):44-64.

Glover, Kaiama L. 2005. "Exploiting the Undead: The Usefulness of the Zombie in Haitian Literature."Journal of Haitian Studies 11(2):105-121.

Matory, J. Lorand. 2007. "Free to Be a Slave: Slavery as Metaphor in the Afro-Atlantic Religions." Journal of Religion in Africa 37(3):398-425.

McAlister, Elizabeth A. 1995. "A Sorcerer's Bottle: The Art of Magic in Haiti." In Donald J. Cosentino, ed. Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

Moreau de Saint-Méry, M. L. E., and American Imprint Collection (Library of Congress). 1797. Description Topographique, Physique, Civile, Politique Et Historique De La Partie Francaise De L'isle Saint-Domingue.

Morrison, Toni. 1993. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. New York: Vintage Books.

Seabrook, William. 1929. The Magic Island. New York: Literary Guild of America.

Shaw, Rosalind. 2002. Memories of the Slave Trade: Ritual and the Historical Imagination in Sierra Leone. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sheller, Mimi. 2003. Consuming the Caribbean : From Arawaks to Zombies. London ; New York: Routledge.