Abstract

MARTINEZ-LUCENA, Jorge. ‘We Are All Infected’ The Derridian Imaginary of the Human Event in The Walking Dead. Palabra Clave [online]. 2017, vol.20, n.2, pp.316-339. ISSN 0122-8285.  https://doi.org/10.5294/pacla.2017.20.2.2.

Contemporary TV series are having a great success and influence in our postmodern societies. The zombie phenomenon is getting everyday bigger audiences as well. Perhaps, this is the reason why the number of TV series about zombies is also growing. This paper uses the theory of social imaginaries to show the manner in which one of these before mentioned media products, the series The Walking Dead, invites us to picture or imagine the human through a new characteristic of the survivors: that of being infected. This new state shows how this TV fiction introduces and potentiates a new idea of humanhood as eventual and impossible for the naturalistic and economical reasoning. In order to clarify this idea of the human being as someone who cannot be reduced to the mere scientific discourse we invoke Derrida and his attempt of defending the human difference.

Keywords : Derrida; anthropology; human; event; The Walking Dead; TV series; social imaginaries; zombie.

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