{"id":20,"date":"2011-09-17T16:46:04","date_gmt":"2011-09-17T16:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoodcomstudies.com\/theblueandgrey\/?p=20"},"modified":"2011-10-05T20:39:26","modified_gmt":"2011-10-05T20:39:26","slug":"unconventional-course-offerings-at-hood-zombie-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblueandgrey.com\/index.php\/2011\/09\/17\/unconventional-course-offerings-at-hood-zombie-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Unconventional course offerings at Hood: Zombie History"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Kristinia Southwell<\/div>\n
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Dr. Jay Driskell teaches his course “A Zombie History of the U.S.,” in which students explore the historical and cultural symbolism in classic zombie films.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

Photo by Stacey Axler<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Thanks to some unusual course offerings introduced to students this semester, Hood is making a national name for itself.<\/p>\n

The college recently made the list of \u201c22 Fascinating and Bizarre College Classes Offered This Semester,\u201d in an online article picked up by CNN.com.\u00a0 Hood was listed as #13 with \u201cBiology of Jurassic Park,\u201d but that is not the only offbeat course offered here. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA Zombie History of theU.S.,\u201d a course taught by Dr. Jay Driskell, assistant professor of history, was offered for the first time this semester and has created a buzz among students. While the class does capitalize on the popularity of zombies, it also explores significant historical events.<\/p>\n

Driskell, a self-proclaimed zombie movie fan, found inspiration for the course after watching George Romero\u2019s classic 1968 zombie movie \u201cNight of the Living Dead\u201d this past summer and noticing that the plot works as a metaphor for race in the South.<\/p>\n

\u201cZombies have been used as cultural metaphors to talk about slavery, imperialism, race, foreign peoples, fears of catastrophe, apocalypse, and armageddon \u2026 and those are things I have been interested in for a long time,\u201d Driskell said.<\/p>\n

The course features screenings of many popular zombie movies such as \u201c28 Days Later\u201d and \u201cShaun of the Dead,\u201d but Driskell stressed that the class is not a \u201cfluff course.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just watching movies and fun,\u201d said student Emily Goldstein.<\/p>\n

Fellow student Ian Chalmers admitted, \u201cIt’s harder than I thought it would be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Driskell\u2019s course aims to teach students \u201cthe tools of cultural history and our cultural language.\u201d Courses that incorporate pop culture and contemporary trends \u201care useful in making the liberal arts relevant to things immediately around us,\u201d said Driskell.<\/p>\n

There are some downsides to unusual courses, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no textbook really for a zombie history of theUnited States,\u201d Driskell said. \u201cI had to go pretty far and wide to find things that would tie this together into a coherent narrative.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Driskell hopes that the course will be a success and that his students learn something.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s been a fun class so far,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope I get the chance to teach the class again.\u00a0 I hope it\u2019s not just trendy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kristinia Southwell Dr. Jay Driskell teaches his course “A Zombie History of the U.S.,” in which students explore the historical and cultural symbolism in classic zombie films. Photo by Stacey Axler Thanks to some […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19,18,14,7,95,17,13,12,16,15],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-news","tag-biology-of-jurassic-park","tag-cnn","tag-history","tag-hood-college","tag-issue-1","tag-jay-driskell","tag-kristina-southwell","tag-stacey-axler","tag-zombie-history","tag-zombies"],"aioseo_notices":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblueandgrey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblueandgrey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblueandgrey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblueandgrey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblueandgrey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theblueandgrey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215,"href":"https:\/\/theblueandgrey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblueandgrey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblueandgrey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblueandgrey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}