Zombie Apocalypse: Contagion and Catastrophe in the Classroom

One day the world will end. How, when, and why this might happen are questions that have captivated people for thousands of years, from Zoroaster and Jesus Christ to Simone de Beauvoir and David Bowie. What are the signs of this pending doom? Earthquakes? Famine? Locusts? Wars? Demons? A moon split in two? The sun rising in the west? COVID? Will there be zombies there? Is this really all part of God’s plan? Though not unprecedented, COVID has changed the world today and inspired a resurgence of apocalyptic thought – and thought about zombies, as infectious COVID cells are actually called “zombie cells,” while the CDC provides instructions on not only how to try to survive this horrific pandemic but how also to try to survive the pending zombie apocalypse. Is this pandemic a sign that the end is near? That the zombies are on the way or already here? Will there be a rapture, leaving tribulation saints (or the vaccinated) on earth to struggle against the wicked and/or the afflicted, those contagious with either evil or viruses or toxins that zombify? Will zombies be part of the apocalypse? They are contagious, after all, quite viral, and, like the afflicted and the wicked, they were once fully human and had a chance at salvation. Are they still human, the wicked, the afflicted, the zombies? What does it all mean, and how did zombies gain a role in the apocalypse in popular imagination in the first place? This paper seeks to provide answers to these and related questions and offers reflections on what it is like to teach a course on the Zombie Apocalypse when many of your students think that it is actually happening.