Queering the Family in The Walking Dead, 1st ed. 2018

This book traces how The Walking Dead franchise narratively, visually, and rhetorically represents transgressions against heteronormativity and the nuclear family. The introduction argues that The Walking Dead reflects cultural anxiety over threats to the family. Chapter 1 examines the destructive competition created by heteronormativity, such as the conflict between Rick and Shane. Chapter 2 focuses on the actual or attempted participation of characters such as Carol and Negan in queer relationships. Chapter 3 interprets zombies as queer antagonists to heteronormativity, while Chapter 4 explores the incorporation of zombies into the lives of characters such as the Governor and the Whisperers. The conclusion asserts that The Walking Dead presents both queer alternatives to and damaging contradictions within the traditional heterosexual family model, helping to question this model and to consider the struggle of queer American families. Overall, this study holds special interest for students and scholars of queerness, zombies, and the family.

John R. Ziegler is Assistant Professor of English at Bronx Community College, CUNY, USA. His research straddles the 16^th–17^th and 20^th–21^st centuries, and he has published on early modern English and Irish literature, ghosts, zombies, and video games. He also co-edits the journal Supernatural Studies and reviews theater for Culture Catch.

Covers the first seven seasons of the television show and the first 144 issues of the comic book series

Addresses a lack of scholarship on The Walking Dead comics series, while expanding the remit of analyses of the television series

Produces a sustained, detailed analysis that will be of use to scholars and teachers of horror, gender, cultural, comics, and television studies