Faust, Macbeth, Shaun of the Dead

I got to see Laura again on Tuesday morning. She was in town being wooed by UCD's English Department as she picks a PhD program. Not that many people wind up in Davis on their own steam, so I was doubly psyched. Laura thinks pretty highly of the program, but prospective student days are always a bit wacky. While making conversation with a current PhD student, they discovered that they had similar research interests. Laura explained that she was interested in the body, identity and the limits of the self, primarily in 20th Century poetry. The other girl concurred heartily, then added, "In all seriousness, I'm interested in zombies." Laura said something polite. "Yeah," the other girl continued, "I'm just fascinated by the rotting flesh of the zombie." "I'm interested in zombies, too," Laura told me later over crèpes. "I'm just not professionally interested in them. It's more like, zombie vs. werewolf: who's on top?" We had a fun time trying to imagine which canonical works this girl would be using for her thesis.