UNIT 7: Contagion Anxiety and 21st Century Humanities

Question 1

Who wrote the Vampire Diaries?

Answer 1

Bram Stoker

Question 2

What are some qualities of the Vampire?

Answer 2

• Undead creature (not fully alive)
• Parasitic creature, always looking for a host to feed on.
• Voracious appetite towards it’s prey (including sexually)
• Shapeshifter
• Inheretly Evil

Question 3

What type of novel is the Vampire Diaries?

Answer 3

An Epistolary novel (told through letters)

Question 4

Who was Dracula modeled after?

Answer 4

Vlad the Impaler

Question 5

What is Dracula’s goal?

Answer 5

Find new victims to spread his curse.

Question 6

What makes the vampire stand out compared to other monsters?

Answer 6

It’s monstrosity is contagious, one can become a monster if afflicted with the diseases

Question 7

What real world idea is the vampire associated with?

Answer 7

The idea of the Corruption of Blood. Vampirism symbolized a universal disease that is impure and evil

Question 8

What is one way the vampire/ Dracula can be read?

Answer 8

Economic- An economically corrupted aristocrat, looking to suck the live out of the workers who produce mass goods.

Question 9

What has the vampire come to represent?

Answer 9

Our anxieties about death and disease

Question 10

What is Contagion Anxiety

Answer 10

The uncertainty over germs and disease that spreads around socially. Thinking that any impurity/ sickness could cause death.

Question 11

Where does Zombie’s origin primarily come from?

Answer 11

Cultures in West Africa (Congo). However, regions in the Caribbean help build the Zombies origin further (Haitian)

Question 12

In Haitian origin, the zombie is considered a?

Answer 12

Slave, forced to do the bidding of the one who reanimated it. They are dehumanized

Question 13

“Night of the Living Dead” was a critique on?

Answer 13

Growing suburban life and how it alienated and disconnected people from nature. Additionally talks about overconsumption.

Question 14

What can zombies say about use in the 21st century? Zombies as a metaphor now?

Answer 14

Due to the rise of the digital age and constant consumption of media, alienating us from nature and ourselves, we’ve become mindless slaves to our screens.

Question 15

What is the Information Age?

Answer 15

encompasses connections and obsessions with technology. How we send more time on screens than getting to know ourselves/ experience the world.

Question 16

What are 2 figures/ “monsters” in sci-fi that represent Digital Age Anxieties?

Answer 16

• Android (Likeness of Men)- A humanoid robot (e.g) the Terminator
• Cyborg (Cybernetic organism)- A creature that both has organic and inorganic parts.

Question 17

What is Transhumanism?

Answer 17

Enhancement of the human body through technology:
-Genetic Engineering
-Digital Technology
-Bioengineering

(Glasses can be considered an example of transhumanism)

Question 18

Posthumanism

Answer 18

An existence beyond humanity. Moving from the biological perception of what a human is, to the essence of what a human is
- Merging of humans and machines

Question 19

How have we become Post-human?

Answer 19

Information has become disembodied, separated from it’s material form. Information found or accessed on the computer, exists beyond the computer. Meaning one can access the information through other means.