Zombie Apocalypse Never Die Alone

[Salvador Baltimore]

CruiseYoongi x reader: A summer cruise as a translator for world-famous band BTS: what could go wrong? WELL, the zombie apocalypse. In the middle of the ocean, are you safe? Or is there danger lurking in the deep? Wordcount: 8, 342

Back in May, I was approached by Peabody education volunteer and Triton Regional High School History teacher Lisa Herzl about a student of hers who was interested in going to college for archaeology. She asked if there were any opportunities this summer for the student to learn more about what exactly archaeology is before committing her life (and $$$$) to studying it.

The Fiske Center UMass Boston was hired to investigate the property that the Marblehead Museum recently acquired. The property sits adjacent to the Jeremiah Lee Mansion, owned and operated by the Marblehead Museum, and was the former brick kitchen and possible slave quarters owned by the Lee family. This would make the site the SECOND known, still standing, extant slave quarters in New England.

The game structure of Never Alone is a puzzle platformer where in order to win you must play as both Nuna, a young girl, and her fox companion, highlighting the Iupiat ideal of cooperation and community.

For the Computer Science class, I pulled artifacts from our Arctic collections for the students to explore. The students were asked to not only work together to figure out what the artifacts are and how they were used, but to also identify which artifacts were depicted within the game.

If you are interested in learning more, please join the Gene Winter Chapter of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society on Tuesday March 15 at 7 p.m. when Dr. Bill Farley will discuss video game archaeology. To register for the zoom link email info.ne...@massarchaeology.org.

During an incredibly cold weekend in January, I was bundled up on my couch and looking for a movie to stream. I finally settled one that Disney+ had just recently released, Encanto. I had no idea what the movie was about, past the short blurb that was provided on the info page before the movie started:

After finishing the movie, I will only admit to really enjoying it and any rumors you may have heard from my cats about me being a blubbering, crying mess throughout it, are lies. All lies!

At the beginning of the movie, the matriarch of the Madrigal family, Abuela Alma faces armed violence and suffers incredible loss, while fleeing with her husband and three babies. After a harrowing night, in which her husband dies, she receives a miracle of a magic candle that helps to create a magical casita (house) inside a magically hidden town.

Many of our classes at the Peabody touch upon some aspect of historical trauma in indigenous communities, with the boarding school experience being one of the main ones that we explore. Given the prevalence that it has in our teaching, I look forward to making connections to a movie many of our students will know as a means to enhance their understanding of such a profound topic.

This month I helped Dr. Bethany Jay of Salem State University to outline a new education course that she will be teaching focused on subject matter knowledge listed in the MA frameworks for History and social sciences from prek-8th grade.

The course will help future teachers explore the political, economic, and cultural development of the United States with an eye towards social justice. As such, Indigenous people Africans/African Americans, and women will figure prominently in the course discussions of those who impacted American history. Students in the class will see how these groups influenced and were affected by the changing political, cultural, and economic landscape..

I wanted to change how our students interacted with material about the Pueblo Revolt and so I created a new lesson that gave more weight to the Pueblo experience, in their own words. And thankfully, Dr. Marisela Ramos, History Department Head was more than happy to let me use her classes to experiment and refine my lesson.

After working in groups and spending time exploring the details of a single picture, students report back to the whole class about what information their picture is conveying, before working collaboratively to place all the images in chronological order. As the class orders the images, we discuss how the narrative of each single picture contributes to our understanding of the larger story of the Pueblo Revolt.

We end the class with a discussion regarding the differences in how a single event is portrayed depending on the viewpoint and medium (visual narrative vs. written account) as well as why it is important that oral traditions be given the same authority as written documents.

This season features ten speakers who will explore exciting topics such as maritime history, the archaeology of American protests, queer archaeology, and ableism in archaeology. The full list of speakers and topics is:

Dr. Miriam Villanueva, faculty in the History department, taught a course during Spring term on understanding history through zombie films. She used films such as Ojuju and Zombi Child to explore various cultural, social, and economic issues impacting the cultures that the films center on.

By no means are these all the ways that the movie serves as commentary regarding historical and contemporary issues in Indian Country nor are the examples given below the only ones that can be found in the movie.

Early on in the movie, there is a discussion about how all the tetanus shots in the clinic have been taken by the emergency department. Students saw this scene as connected to reservations given the historical and contemporary actions of resources being taken by the government and other for profit industries.

There is a scene where a father is trying to bring his clearly sick/injured daughter into the compound. When asked if she had been bitten the father denied it, however the bite mark was easily found on her neck.

There was also a character named Lilith who showed up with the father and daughter who also had a bite wound on her stomach, which she never disclosed while accepting the help and security being offered.

Placing Native children into the foster care system is a direct result of the same federal policies which lead to the creation of native boarding schools. The foster care system has played such a destructive role in the harming of Native families and communities that the state of Maine convened the Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate the trauma that resulted from decades long policies related to Native children in the state of Maine. (Dawnland is an award winning documentary about the Commissions work)

One of the topics with which students were already familiar was protests against the destruction of the environment and areas of cultural significance by the construction of gas and oil pipelines. Many Indigenous communities have set up blockades, particularly on bridges, to stop the movement of workers and machines.

So, if zombie movies are your thing, you might consider watching this particular movie and I hope that this blog post will make your viewing richer in your understanding of how it serves as a commentary on issues within Indian Country.

Recently I collaborated with Dr. Miriam Villanueva of the Department of History and Social Science at Phillips Academy to create a new lesson that focused on both the American Indian Movement and the takeover of Alcatraz Island in 1969 by Native activists.

Our focus was to have students understand how Native protests are centered around issues regarding tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, and meaningful intergovernmental consultation. We also sought to highlight how the ignorance of the American public regarding these issues perpetuates misconceptions about these protests while also connecting them to modern issues.

We then ended the lesson with a group discussion about how these protests are all connected to each other while at the same time connected to sites and ancestors that are thousands of years old. The students also came up with possible solutions to ensure that the public has a better understanding of the reasons behind the protests so that their ultimate goals are not misinterpreted, thus undermining the power of the protest.

Three weeks ago I had posted an article about Konami releasing a new game directly through the Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade entitled Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone. The game has been out for a short amount of time and now there is now some NEW downloadable content available for it. More details from the press release after the jump:

Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. today announced that new downloadable content for Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone is now available on Xbox LIVE Arcade for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PlayStationNetwork for PlayStation3.

The undead never rest as there is now an underground military base on the island with test weapons, toxic waste, and an endless stream of zombies. Players can navigate the new arena that includes characters from Zombie Apocalypse 1, and an all new Pure Pwnage mode featuring Doug and Jeremy from the popular Canadian web series.

In Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone, gamers play as four unlikely heroes who are put to the test when the Zombie Apocalypse hits their small Canadian Island. Banding together for both humor and survival, and armed with weapons including guns, chainsaws, and C4 teddy bears, the heroes must band together to find a way to survive the zombie hordes and get off the island.

Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone is now available for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 through the Play Station Network and Xbox Live Arcade along with the Pure Pwnage Pack. If you missed my previous article on Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone, that can be viewed here: Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone can be found on the web at:

Disorder and chaos ravage London when thousands are contaminated by the accidental discharge of an experimental bioweapon. The disease robs its hosts of rational thought, giving them a singular desire - find more living flesh to infect.

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