{"id":21284,"date":"2015-09-27T14:24:54","date_gmt":"2015-09-27T19:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=21284"},"modified":"2015-09-27T14:24:54","modified_gmt":"2015-09-27T19:24:54","slug":"austin-peay-state-university-professors-publish-but-if-a-zombie-apocalypse-did-occur-a-scholarly-book-on-zombies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2015\/09\/27\/austin-peay-state-university-professors-publish-but-if-a-zombie-apocalypse-did-occur-a-scholarly-book-on-zombies\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Peay State University professors publish “But if a Zombie Apocalypse Did Occur…,” a scholarly book on zombies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – The decaying, dangerous world of mega-popular television show and comic series \u201cThe Walking Dead\u201d is not real and will never be our reality.<\/p>\n

But if zombies did start shambling down our real world streets, it wouldn\u2019t be the worst idea if we had a plan.<\/p>\n

Taking advantage of a unique overlapping of both personal and professional interests, Dr. Antonio Thompson, Austin Peay State University associate professor of history, and his wife, APSU associate professor of biology Dr. Amy Thompson, recently completed work on a new academic book, titled \u201cBut If a Zombie Apocalypse Did Occur: Essays on Medical, Military, Governmental, Ethical, Economic and Other Implications.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>

Dr. Antonio Thompson and Dr. Amy Thompson are spreading the word about the new scholarly book they are co-editing, \u201cThe Real World Implications of a Zombie Apocalypse.\u201d (Photo by Beth Liggett\/APSU staff)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhen \u2018The Walking Dead\u2019 came on television, I started watching it, and I saw that the show was really about people and not the zombies themselves,\u201d Dr. Amy Thompson said. \u201cOne of the things you have to do as a college professor is reach your audience, reach your students, and talk about things that they like in order to engage them in learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

As devotees of the genre, the Thompsons saw the popularity of zombies as an opportunity to better reach students on a personal level. While at San Diego Comic-Con to present an academic paper in 2012, Dr. Antonio Thompson pitched the book\u2019s concept to editors from McFarland Press, a major academic and adult nonfiction publisher, and quickly received a contract for the book.<\/p>\n

Popularized by film director George Romero, the modern zombie is notable in terms of its thematics; Romero saw zombies as not just a frightening enemy, but as a vehicle to criticize what he saw as the ills of society.<\/p>\n

\u201cRomero looks at the modern zombie as a metaphor; that\u2019s why you sometimes hear the saying \u2018we are the zombies\u2019,\u201d Dr. Antonio Thompson said. \u201cWhat the zombies are doing is often what we do. Why do the zombies go to the mall (in 1978\u2019s \u2018Dawn of the Dead\u2019)? They do that because that\u2019s what we do \u2013 it\u2019s a criticism of consumerism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the guise of responses to a real world zombie outbreak, the Thompsons\u2019 book collects essays that consider the implications of a scientifically impossible event, examining real-world responses to pandemic contagion and civic chaos, as well as those from Hollywood and popular culture. The contributors discuss the zombie apocalypse as a metaphor for actual catastrophes and estimate the probabilities of human survival and behavior during an undead invasion.<\/p>\n

To construct the book, the Thompsons solicited top scholars across the country, including Harvard University assistant professor of psychiatry Dr. Steven Scholzman, to contribute essays for this work. They also invited three of their colleagues, APSU biology professor Dr. James Thompson, APSU nursing professor Linda Thompson and APSU sociology professor Dr. David Steele, to write chapters for the book.<\/p>\n

The Thompsons each contributed essays to the book, with the professors tackling one aspect of a theoretical zombie apocalypse through the lens of their academic expertise.<\/p>\n

While a zombie plague has never brought the world\u2019s governments to their knees, civilization has faced numerous wars, epidemics and disasters. Presidents have never fallen victim to a zombie\u2019s bite, but revolutionaries have overthrown them in times of conflict.<\/p>\n

[320left]In his contribution, Dr. Antonio Thompson, an expert in both government and history, examined real world parallels to the sort of dystopian, oppressive world that viewers of \u201cThe Walking Dead\u201d visit each week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote a piece looking at zombie movies and literature for examples of when government has collapsed and there\u2019s a crazy dictator who has taken over,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cI looked at political theory and what it has looked like when a new government has formed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe the zombie apocalypse won\u2019t actually happen and maybe a collapse of government structure won\u2019t actually create the tyrant we see (in zombie fiction), but there have been many times where personal rights have been violated or curtailed, especially in times of crisis. I\u2019m not justifying those actions, but I\u2019m saying that it has happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

An expert in biology, Dr. Amy Thompson used her knowledge and experience to examine the role of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during an apocalyptic event.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn zombie movies, people always want to get to the CDC or World Health Organization, and I ask whether that (motivation) is founded,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cIn my essay, the reader sees times the CDC has succeeded, as well as times they\u2019ve had challenges. In the end, they\u2019ll see that the CDC has a good track record of handling crisis situations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough that common (plot device) in zombie fiction, the reader comes in thinking about zombies, but they\u2019re really just a vehicle to learn more about the real world CDC,\u201d Thompson continued. \u201cWhat I\u2019m doing is really just finding a new way to present materials to students through a topic they\u2019re already interested in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book is available now through major retailers, including Amazon.com<\/p>\n

For more information on these works, contact Dr. Antonio Thompson at thompsonas@apsu.edu<\/a> or Dr. Amy Thompson at thompsona@apsu.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – The decaying, dangerous world of mega-popular television show and comic series \u201cThe Walking Dead\u201d is not real and will never be our reality. But if zombies did start shambling down our real world streets, it wouldn\u2019t be the worst idea if we had a plan. Taking advantage of a unique overlapping of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[4020,17473,5689,23,262,10957,825,26804,17486,26805,21171,17485,5206,17483,17493,26806,10955,17471],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-5xi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21285,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21284\/revisions\/21285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}