Bryan Hall may be the academic dean of the College of Contemporary Liberal Studies and a professor of liberal arts at Regis University, but he still knows how to take out a zombie, if it comes down to it.
That he might then want to discuss that zombie head shot and its ethical implications? Very likely.
Halls new book, An Ethical Guidebook to the Zombie Apocalypse, is all about the practical study of ethics theory and zombies and how the twain might meet. Its The Good Place if it had a crossover with The Walking Dead. Its the sort of philosophy course you may have wanted to take when you were in school the kind that is serious about the theory, even if the treatment isnt so much.
We caught up with the good professor between semesters (and apparently between zombie movies) to talk about the book, his upcoming readings at the Tattered Cover LoDo (Saturday, January 11) and BookBar (Saturday, January 18), and how the undead can breathe some life into the ivory tower.
Westword:You're bringing your book to theTattered Cover LoDo this Saturday for a discussion and signing. What do you have in mind for that event? I imagine it like a literary zombie crawl, only localized.
Bryan Hall:The entire book is written behind the fourth wall by someone living through a zombie pandemic and includes short stories, graphic art and philosophical prose. I want the audience to have a good feel for the post-apocalyptic world the book is set within and how important philosophical thinking is for not only surviving, but ultimately flourishing in that world. My hope is that people come away from the reading entertained as well as enlightened.
How did the idea for this book come about? Clearly, it's closely related to your field, but how did you cross the streams of academic and apocalyptic sci-fi?
Ive been a huge horror fan for as long as I have been into philosophy. When I was a graduate student at CU Boulder, I started a Philosophy and Film series, which was mainly an excuse for me and my friends to expose a captive audience to our favorite films. Many of mine were horror films. For example, I showed Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a jumping-off point for talking about the ethics of eating meat. It was only after reading Max Brookss The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection From the Living Dead, however, that I got the idea for this book. I noticed that the zombie survival guide (a subgenre in zombie horror) and the kind of primer that one would read in an Introduction to Ethics class are structurally very similar to one another. It seemed natural to me to mash up the two genres, and with them, these two aspects of my personality.
There seems to be a connection between this book and some of what the TV show The Good Placehas tried to do with the marrying of philosophy, ethics, the human condition and comedy. Are you a fan of that show?
I think it is trying to do something similar to my book insofar as it uses a pop-cultural medium to deliver philosophical content. In this respect, The Good Place is quite good as far as it can go. The problem is that it is bound by the conventions of a thirty-minute sitcom, which limits the breadth and depth of philosophical exploration. The philosophy has to be in service of the comedy, and too often the philosophy is played for laughs, which can minimize its impact on the audience it is supposed to reach.
What other pop-culture references can you trace back from this book?
I have a real love for zombie horror, and I hope that comes out in the book. When it comes to movies, there are lots of references to George Romero, including the names of certain characters and the idea that zombies can evolve. I also draw on zombie literature. For example, I really like Mira Grants Newsflesh series, and I borrow a lot of her rules for the world I created. Not surprisingly, The Walking Dead is another major influence throughout the book. In the further study section at the end of each chapter, I include references to episodes of the show or issues of the comic that could be used to illustrate the philosophical themes that were discussed.
What is it about zombie stories that they speak so naturally about how we can all be better (living) humans?
Zombies provide a post-apocalyptic vehicle for us to talk about ourselves and how we would behave in the absence of any external authority: police, military, etcetera. The irony of most zombie fiction is that we have much more to fear from the living than we do from the undead. Philosophers have used a similar approach for thousands of years. Everything from Platos Ring of Gyges in The Republic to Thomas Hobbess State of Nature in Leviathan introduce ethical concepts by considering human beings without social constraint.
Let's get real: Zombies have been having something of a moment for a while now. Is the trend abating, do you think? The heyday of The Walking Dead has passed, and we've seen a plethora of movies, TV, comic books, etc. Shaun of the Dead is clearly a favorite of yours; what are some of your other favorites?
Wow. Thanks for the opportunity to geek out! As you note, Im a big fan of the ZomCom. Besides Shaun of the Dead, I love Dead Alive,an early Peter Jackson movie; the Evil Dead movies though not the 2013 remake; and Re-Animator. I also really like the new wave of so-called Emo Zombie fiction horror with an existentialist twist. This would include books/movies like The Girl With All the Gifts, Ravenousand Warm Bodies. I dont think the trend is necessarily abating, but it is mutating as any good virus should.
Fair enough. But theres always the bad with the good. How about your least favorites in the genre?
Look, lets be honest: There is a lot of shlock out there. In fact, your more discerning readers will likely put some of my favorites into that category. When I am consuming less than appetizing zombie fiction, I sometimes blurt out Less chat, more splat! The chat is great as long as it is engaging and thought-provoking. In the absence of good chat, however, the splat must make up for the deficiency. The worst thing is for a zombie book/comic/movie/show to be boring. I can only hope people do not say the same about my book
One of the central conceits of the book is that it was found as a manuscript in the basement of a restaurant in a Mexican border town, and that the epidemic itself started somewhere in the American Midwest. Any reason that you chose those locations specifically?
The fictional author of the book, who also features elliptically in all of the short stories, has undergone a vicious transformation of character motivated, in large part, by the harrowing physical journey they undertook and the choices they had to make to get as far as they have. The author is an immigrant fleeing certain (un)death, and I wanted readers to understand and perhaps even empathize with this person and their transformation. As to location, it seemed appropriate to have the cause for immigration in the fictional world stemming from the place that is most terrified of it in the real world.
Speaking of Mexico, the first field exercise in chapter one takes a little swipe at then-candidate Trump's quote about Mexico "not sending us their best," only subbing in zombies for immigrants, and re-attributing the message to a fictional "President Mentemuro." Mentemuro shows up occasionally in the book, every time clearly as a Trumpian stand-in. Talk a little bit about the decision not to just use Trump himself, and why you chose the name Mentemuro.
Allcharacters appearing in this work are fictitious. Anyresemblanceto real persons, living or undead, past or present, is purelycoincidental. That being said, my favorite episode of Star Trek to name another pop-culture influence is Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. I want readers, especially those who look like me probably a fair share of the potential readership to consider themselves in the position of those they might be inclined to discriminate against. The name Mentemuro was the idea of my former colleague Steve Alvarez. He suggested it when we were working together at St. Johns University in New York City, where I was before coming to Regis University. I wanted the characters name to be a portmanteau in Spanish, and he suggested this name which combines mind and wall. It toys with connection between the mental and physical barriers we build to exclude one another.
So is this book in part a satirical warning shot about the dangers of Trumpian politics as much as it is an introductionto ethics?
By including oblique references to our current politics, I wanted the section on cultural relativism to resonate with readers in a way that philosophical presentations of the view often do not. For example, a classic way of presenting the position is by using Herodotuss Histories and the example of Darius, King of Persia, who is adjudicating between the Greeks and the Callatians. The Greeks burn their dead and find the practices of the Callatians, who eat their dead, morally reprehensible. The reverse is also true, and Darius is asked to decide between them. This is supposed to motivate the idea that morality is culturally relative. It would have been easy enough for me to zombify this story, and I wrote a draft of the first chapter doing just this. Although readers would have understood the philosophical point, they would not be invested in either side. I want readers to be invested (one way or another) in the cultural standpoints, which is why I frame things divisively. This should also make the criticisms of cultural relativism far more impactful than they would be otherwise. The goal throughout is for readers to imaginatively inhabit the philosophical views being discussed and criticized.
Any other geeky passions that you could adapt into textbooks? It seems like you could do a whole thing on the manipulation of time in Avengers: Endgame and free will. Assuming Disney would get a bite of the licensing, no zombie-pun intended.
Thats a great idea! You can work on Disney, and Ill work on the book. Speaking of time and free will, at least one of us will be stuck with a Sisyphean task!
Before zombies, my first love was vampires. I was a bit of a goth kid growing up. I would love to do an Introduction to Philosophy text that deals with personal identity, free will, self-knowledge, moral responsibility, and concepts in philosophy of religion using a vampire conceit. There is a really rich canon of vampire fiction both in content and form to draw from in writing a book like this. Prospective publishers, I patiently await your offers
Last question: Where were textbooks like this when I was taking Ethics 101 in undergrad?
Well, in all fairness to your ethics professor, we have been using popular culture to convey philosophical content for generations. All I have done is packed it all into a gory little box topped with a lovely bow of entrails.
Bryan Hall will discuss and sign copies of An Ethical Guidebook to the Zombie Apocalypse at Tattered Cover LoDo at 2 p.m. Saturday, January 11, and at BookBar at 7 p.m. Saturday, January 18.
Teague Bohlen is a writer, novelist and professor at the University of Colorado Denver. His first novel, The Pull of the Earth, won the Colorado Book Award for Literary Fiction in 2007; his textbook The Snarktastic Guide to College Success came out in 2014. His new collection of flash fiction, Flatland, is available now.
See the rest here:
Bryan Hall on "An Ethical Guidebook to the Zombie Apocalypse" - Westword
- The Cranberries' Zombie - the story behind the incendiary song - Louder - April 22nd, 2024
- Chris Riddell on the zombie Tory government falling apart at the seams cartoon - The Guardian - April 22nd, 2024
- Zombie grave dating back 4,200 years discovered in Germany, photos show - Miami Herald - April 22nd, 2024
- Steam zombie survival game leaves early access 11 years on, and you've got one week to get it cheap - PCGamesN - April 22nd, 2024
- "Zombie" cicadas with STDs are coming to Virginia - Axios - April 22nd, 2024
- Deathtroopers is the Star Wars zombie horror game I never knew I needed - PC Gamer - April 22nd, 2024
- Zombie Army VR Reveals The Story In Latest Trailer - Bleeding Cool News - April 22nd, 2024
- Where Infected "Zombie Cicadas" In The US Will Emerge In 2024 - TheTravel - April 22nd, 2024
- Zombie anti-abortion laws are menacing American women - The Hill - April 22nd, 2024
- Joe Manganiello to Zombie It Up in Mountain Man Adaptation - Reactor - Reactor - April 22nd, 2024
- Frozen Soul Covered White Zombie and It Rules - MetalSucks - April 22nd, 2024
- Arizona's abortion ban could bring zombie laws back to life in other states - Fast Company - April 22nd, 2024
- Arizona abortion ban shows the dangers of reviving zombie laws - MSNBC - April 22nd, 2024
- Zombie fires smoldering near Canadian oil and gas wells threaten production following 2023 wildfires - WorldOil - April 22nd, 2024
- You'll Never Guess Who Doesn't Want to Repeal a Zombie Abortion Ban - The New Republic - April 22nd, 2024
- Zombie Army VR: New trailer gives a glimpse of the gruesome campaign - MIXED Reality News - April 22nd, 2024
- Zombie Tests: Is the SAT Back From the Dead? - Fair Observer - April 22nd, 2024
- How likely are you to survive a zombie apocalypse in Connecticut? You may want to travel north - Hartford Courant - April 22nd, 2024
- Missouri Reports 162 New Cases Of Deer 'Zombie' Disease In 2023 - Lake Expo - April 22nd, 2024
- Zombie Fires Pose Looming Threat to Canada's Oil and Gas Infrastructure - OilPrice.com - April 22nd, 2024
- Rob Zombie Presenting House on Haunted Hill Soundtrack on Vinyl - ComicBook.com - April 22nd, 2024
- Take on Zombie Stormtroopers In This Star Wars Fan Game - IGN - April 22nd, 2024
- The Best Zombie Game of 2023 Has a New Expansion Out Now - Esports.net News - April 22nd, 2024
- Frozen Soul Debuts Frosty Rendition of White Zombie's 'Creature of the - Knotfest - April 22nd, 2024
- 'Dawn of the Dead' at 45: A Zombie Love Affair That Never Died - The New York Times - April 12th, 2024
- Hyper-sexual 'zombie cicadas' infected with bizarre STD fungus will emerge in US - New York Post - April 12th, 2024
- Zombie malls and other retail centers getting extreme makeovers to keep up with the times - Chicago Tribune - April 12th, 2024
- 'Zombie' drug xylazine found in cannabis THC vapes in UK - BBC.com - April 12th, 2024
- Taxing health insurance: The Republican zombie that refuses to die - Roll Call - April 12th, 2024
- Fungus-infected Zombie Cicadas with hypersexuality to emerge in the US this year: Expert - Hindustan Times - April 12th, 2024
- Zombie Classic Dawn Of The Dead Coming Back to Theaters for 45th Anniversary - MetalSucks - April 12th, 2024
- E-News | 'Zombie cicadas' infected with sexually transmitted fungus expected to emerge this year in parts of US - WVU ENews - April 12th, 2024
- Deadly Zombie Sedative Penetrating The U.K.s Illicit Drugs Market - Forbes - April 12th, 2024
- Seattle Police warn that base ingredient in 'zombie drug' tranq is being sold as standalone pill - FOX 13 Seattle - April 12th, 2024
- Opinion | Today's Opinions: Haunted by zombie law and thrown into abortion time-travel - The Washington Post - The Washington Post - April 12th, 2024
- Rob Zombie Teases 'House of 1000 Corpses' Book With Rare Photos, Original Script and More! - Bloody Disgusting - April 12th, 2024
- Zombie malls getting extreme makeovers to keep up with the times - Detroit News - April 12th, 2024
- 2000s Horror Fantasy Is One Of The Most Unique Takes On The Zombie Genre - Giant Freakin Robot - April 12th, 2024
- Mysterious 'Zombie Neurons' Unlock Secrets of Learning in The Brain - ScienceAlert - April 12th, 2024
- Zombie SKUs: What They Are, How They Work & Results - JumpFly PPC Advertising News - April 12th, 2024
- Arizona Reviving Its Zombie Abortion Ban Is Trump's Doing - The Cut - April 12th, 2024
- Hyper-sexual "zombie cicadas" that are infected with sexually transmitted fungus expected to emerge this year - CBS News - April 12th, 2024
- Should we be concerned about zombie cicadas? - WGN Radio - Chicago - April 12th, 2024
- You need to play this underrated zombie shooter before it leaves Xbox Game Pass - Digital Trends - April 12th, 2024
- End the 'zombie' Comstock Act - Star Tribune - April 12th, 2024
- OPINION - Flesh-eating zombie narcotics are on our streets Britain is badly losing its war on drugs - Yahoo News UK - April 12th, 2024
- What Is Xylazine - The Flesh-Eating 'Zombie' Drug Linked To 11 Deaths in The UK? - Times Now - April 12th, 2024
- Zombie Cicadas To Emerge In Virginia: What To Know - Patch - April 12th, 2024
- What Is "Zombie Drug" Gripping The UK? - NDTV - April 12th, 2024
- OJ Simpson's Final Film Will Resurrect His Naked Gun Character - As A Zombie? - Looper - April 12th, 2024
- Flesh-eating 'zombie drug' sweeping US is linked to 11 UK deaths - The Telegraph - April 12th, 2024
- Flesh-rotting 'Zombie drug' tranq raises alarm in UK - The Times of India - April 12th, 2024
- Zombie Cicadas To Emerge In GA: What To Know - Patch - April 12th, 2024
- What was the first-ever zombie movie? - Far Out Magazine - April 12th, 2024
- Even Will Smith Couldnt Save Zombie Survival Game Undawn, Which Flopped Spectacularly - IGN - March 24th, 2024
- Rob Zombie Recommends This Surprisingly Wholesome Comedy - Dread Central - March 24th, 2024
- Army Writing and the Zombie (Noun) Apocalypse - Modern War Institute - United States Military Academy West Point - March 24th, 2024
- Fatal Fury's Mai Shiranui Is In This Zombie Survival Game For Some Reason - Time Extension - March 24th, 2024
- Should you be worried about 'zombie deer'? | College of Public Health - George Mason University - March 24th, 2024
- 'Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island' Scares Its Way to Blu-ray for the First Time This Spring - Collider - March 24th, 2024
- Rob Zombie hates my guts: GWAR's Dave 'Oderus Urungus' Brockie was a genius, and here's an interview that proves it - Louder - March 24th, 2024
- In the fight against gun violence, Rep. Frost Introduces the Destroy Zombie Guns Act - The Apopka Voice - March 24th, 2024
- Elfriede Jelinek's 'The Children of the Dead' is a historical zombie novel - The Washington Post - The Washington Post - March 24th, 2024
- Germany's Zombie Government Is Fueling the Far Right - The Atlantic - March 24th, 2024
- Zombie Survival Game Undawn Has Crashed And Burned According To A Reuters Report - MMOs.com - March 24th, 2024
- Will Smiths Zombie Game Has Been Hit Harder Than Chris Rock at the Oscars Its Astronomical Budget Was ... - imdb - March 24th, 2024
- Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island / Return to Zombie Island Blu-ray (Warner Archive Collection) - Blu-ray.com - March 24th, 2024
- Registration almost here for Dothans annual Zombie 5K Chase - WDHN - March 24th, 2024
- Zombie magic and gambling club Magic Island will come alive again this summer - Houston Chronicle - March 24th, 2024
- Undawn | The $140m zombie survival game starring Will Smith that bombed while nobody was looking - Filmstories - March 24th, 2024
- After 4 years, a cult classic zombie horror manga from Ga-Rei's creator is finally getting an official English release - Gamesradar - March 24th, 2024
- Will Smith's Zombie Game Has Been Hit Harder Than Chris Rock at the Oscars - Its Astronomical Budget Was ... - FandomWire - March 24th, 2024
- "The game literally no one knew existed": The Will Smith Zombie Survival Game is Reportedly a Big Flop and Fans Are ... - FandomWire - March 24th, 2024
- Zombie-palooza --- Get to the biggest undead music event in the latest Dead Island 2 expansion: SoLA - Gaming Trend - March 24th, 2024
- Bournemouth University medical students treat 'zombie attack' in mass training simulation - The Tab - March 24th, 2024
- Zombie car factories on the rise in China as buyers opt for EVs - Financial Times - March 16th, 2024
- Hey, Remember When Rob Zombie Was Going To Direct THE CROW 3? - FANGORIA - March 16th, 2024
- New Walking Dead Twist Shows How The Zombie Outbreak Will Finally End - Screen Rant - March 16th, 2024
- Candid conversations from death row with The Zombie Hunter - Arizona's Family - March 16th, 2024
- Zombie! The Musical - REVIEW - City Hub Sydney - March 16th, 2024
Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero