Think Through Zombies (Lecture Notes)

Dr. Mark Zlomisli

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Introduction and Course Overview
(Open Graves and Open Minds: The Scholarly Study of
Zombies)

This is first of all a philosophy and social science course

where we will use the tools of analysis to examine concepts and

ideas that cluster around the questions: What is life? What does it

mean to live? What does it mean to be human? Is Death the

foundation of our culture? What does it mean to live with the

dead? What does the zombie in all its forms signify and

symbolize? Is it possible to be liberated from what is intolerable:

disease, war, famine, pestilence, greed, selfishness and evil?

To think, here means to analyze concepts through the 4 D

method. We first define or locate what is the essential X of what

we are analyzing. Next through the use of Distinction, we provide

examples and proof that validates our position. We then use

Dialectic to explore opposing viewpoints to our position and based

on this analysis, we can modify or strengthen our initial position.

We then conclude with a summary of what has been

belief while teaching us how to locate what is true and valid. Our

first point of departure will be to analyze what zombies actually

are and how we might think through them.

To think through an issue is to see it from all perspectives,

angles, viewpoints and dead zones where the signal has been

dropped. Through here means that we are using zombies as a tool

in order to analyze culture in all its forms.

We go through a door to enter a room. We look through

binoculars or scopes to get a clearer and closer view. We also use

the phrase, I see through you as if to say we can sense

deception. We see through a screen that protects us from the

swarm of insects. The screen divides the inside from the outside.

We can hear the buzz of flies and hornets but are not bitten or

stung. In this sense, zombie films are a type of screen that allows

us to view the world from a different perspective and angle.

A thinking through is also a thinking back. Zombies here are

a symbolic mirror that reflects our own collective behavior back to

us.

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 From a literal point of view, I dont find zombies very

interesting or believable and I have even been on zombie walks.

They dont make much sense but perhaps this is the point since

the great events of the 20 th century did not make much sense.

Here I speak as a kind of expert of seeing dead bodies. In 1997

when I was 31, I was in the Croatian city of Vukovar where I

witnessed the exhumation of a mass grave- hundreds of bodies

were taken out the ground by the forensic specialists of the UN.

The aftermath of that experience sent me into a depressive

anxiety filled spiral that took many years to resolve. Up to that

point I thought I knew about death since I read books about it, but

seeing so many dead bodies provided me with a real education

that really cant be described.

Movies certainly do provide you with a sensory experience

but it is an experience devoid of smell.

I know what the dead do. I know because I was surrounded

by them. I was in the dirt with them. The dead smell sweet and

rotten- like garbage coated in thick honey on a hot and humid

day. It is an utterly unique and singular smell that our deodorized

culture has attempted to do away with.

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 I have spent the last twenty years of my life trying to make

sense of that mass grave experience, through my writing, through

my art and through teaching philosophy. The ancient Greeks

linked truth to seeing. Truth was seen by the light of reason. The

ancient Hebrews linked truth to hearing. Truth was heard through

the ears of faith. My postmodern position links truth to the smell

of death and life.

Naturally I was drawn to zombies through my own

experience of seeing so many dead and decaying bodies all at

once. Movie graphics and special effects are one thing, but I got

to witness the real deal.

A few years ago I began watching The Walking Dead along

with a few classic zombie films. What immediately struck me

about the series were the real life philosophical issues raised from

grave and how important a zombie course would be to clarify

these issues in detail.

One of the best recent books on Zombies is Greg Garretts

Living with the Dead: The Wisdom of the Zombie Apocalypse.

Here the word apocalypse is important. It does not mean the end

of the world. Apocalypse means, unveiling or stripping bare so

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that the truth can be revealed. In religious terms, the apocalypse

refers to the end times; to what happens at the end of the world

in the great and final battle between good and evil.

The world of the zombie apocalypse as Garrett shows reveal

a world where nature has taken over culture; where our

technology (other than weapons) are useless. Surviving rather

than living is the key. Those left are thrown back into a hunter

gatherer existence while attempts are made to refashion an

agricultural society again.

Garrett writes, that the zombie apocalypse has become one

of the most prominent stories we tell in the twentieth century

West. For many in the world today, the zombie apocalypse is not

a story acted out on film but a daily reality. This is the first thesis

of the course. Zombie films are not really about zombies at all

rather they are about what humans do and do not do when they

are in extreme circumstances. Zombie films show us the costs

and means of survival.

Zombies force us to take a hard look, smell at what really

goes in in our cultures. What does survival costs? Do you survive

at all costs; doing whatever you need to do in order to live

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another day? Do you keep your humanity intact? Or do you

engage in reptile behavior like the Governor? Do you starve or do

you eat your own kind in the sanctuary of Terminus? In the face of

adversity is care, concern, compassion and credibility thrown out

the window in favor of death, demise and destruction? I dont

watch zombie films to be revolted or scared into shock or to

experience virtual violence. I dont see a point to this type of

entertainment because I have actually seen what humans do can

do to each other.

I take the approach of Garrett who writes that the zombie

apocalypse offers a laboratory for observing human emotions

and experience. Its excesses opens up a multitude of responses

that dont get explored in the course of our everyday lives,

although these same choices lurk underneath the surface of all

our lives.

I guess if you really wanted to experience a zombie

apocalypse, the best course of action would be a field trip to an

actual war zone or to a site where a natural disaster has taken

place. Since this is not recommended, we use the screen to

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project depictions of what the majority of the world experience

every day.

The second thesis of the course is that zombies are not the

issue at all, whether they are fast, slow or tall. The issue is and

always has been humans who act in a bestial and non-human

way.

Of course from time immemorial, the history of humanity is

full of examples where war as the ancient Greek philosopher

Heraclitus said is the father of all. The history of our species is

one of destruction, genocide, plague and mass murder with little

pockets of calm. The question then becomes, what does it

actually mean to be human today? Those of us who live in relative

prosperity in Canada might say, there are no real problems, other

than weak Wi-Fi signals at Tim Hortons and traffic on the 401. But

this is already a zombie reply. We can use zombie films as a

prism to better understand the world around us.

In this course I will be analyzing the reason for the popularity

of zombies and how these stories relate to the questions of our

time. Can these stories aid us in how to best live our lives when

we are caught in the twin pincers of hope and nihilism? The open

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grave of the zombie apocalypse allows us to open our minds with

the help of philosophy so that we might make a better world

possible.