ABSTRACT
In her seminal study of zombies, the sociologist Jennifer Rutherford warns against the simple consensus that zombies are so popular because the frivolous are the zombie slaves of consumer culture and its trends. Zombie signification is liquid, meanings flow everywhere and defy binary and arbitrary definitions of any imposing authority; millions of fans enjoy the zombie because they can make it mean whatever they want it to mean. Rutherford argues that at the level of language itself the zombie has become an all-consuming metaphor that is running amok in the human sciences. She observes that zombies are viruses and parasitic infections. Within the signifying chains of language zombies appeal through their ability to function as a negation. Even the cultured ancient Greeks were not without their zombie fears. The concept of the zombie first entered Western parlance in 1889 courtesy of the journalist Patrick Hearn.
