Fungal Zombies and Tentacular Thinking: The Chthonic Mother in the Game The Last of Us

Abstract

Media representations of the zombie as the product of or signifier for human activity (biowarfare, geopolitical conflict) lend themselves to discussions of the zombie within an era of human destruction. Conceptualized differently, however, it is possible to read zombies against-the-grain as recuperative, marking the possibility of a new epoch that seeks to entangle human and non-human species, to regenerate the earth out of rot, and to define the human as humus, to borrow Donna J. Haraway's configuration. This reading blends Haraway's construction of the Chthulucene, a chthonic epoch of inter-species entanglements, with Barbara Creed's articulation of the "archaic mother" as creation and deadly abyss. This article addresses how zombies, as regenerative, recuperative figures, allow for pathways into the Chthulucene, paying special attention to how particular zombies (those present in the video game The Last of Us) represent the kind of cross-species kin-making that Haraway describes.