Spooks of Biopower: The Uncanny Carnivalesque of Zombie Walks

Abstract

At a zombie walk, participants dress up as zombies and parade through the city performing a spectacular representation of a “zombie apocalypse.” The popularity of these events has increased dramatically since the first recorded walk took place in Toronto in 2003. This paper considers the phenomenon in light of the Bakhtinian carnivalesque to argue that the modern zombie walk contrasts with older versions of carnival in its morbid suspension of life and death. I account for this mutation by referring to Michel Foucault’s concept of biopower, and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negris’s concept of the society of control.

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