By Dakota Cantwell

University College Dublin is set to hold a Theorizing Zombiism Conference the July 25-27 next year.

Scott Hamilton and Conor Heffernan, both of UC Dublin, organized the conference to explore the growing interest of zombies and their purpose through the academic focus with the ultimate goal of the conference being to begin the process of creating a singular framework for which pop culture can be examined from the zombie trope.

According to the website for the conference “The rising academic interest in the zombie as an allegory for cultural and social analysis is spanning disciplines including, humanities, anthropology, economics, and political science.” It added “The zombie has been used as a metaphor for economic policy, political administrations, and cultural critique through various theoretical frameworks. The zombie has been examined as a metaphor for capitalism, geopolitics, globalism, neo-liberal markets, and even equating Zombiism to restrictive aspects of academia.”

Potential topics being looked at include nationalism through zombie narratives, gender and the undead, ecocritical zombiism and zombies in pop culture.

While the conference is still calling for submissions, it has already confirmed some speakers, including Jonathan Jacob Moore from UC Berkeley and Lucie Groetzinger from Université de Lorraine.

For more information, visit the conference’s website theorizingzombiism.wordpress.com or visit their twitter page @UCDZombiism2019.