Zombified: Real-World Lessons from Fictional Apocalypses

By: Athena Aktipis, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Athena Aktipis

Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

You watch a horror movie or TV series and think, “Zombies don’t really exist.” But when you consider the broader definition of zombification—the control of one entity by another—then zombies are definitely among us. And, it turns out, they have much to teach us about the world.

Athena Aktipis of Arizona State University is a self-professed apocalypse enthusiast, and as the host of the podcast Zombified, she knows the undead inside and out. With Zombified: Real-World Lessons from Fictional Apocalypses, she’s compiled her research and insights into a fascinating Audible Original that will have you thinking deeper about all those shambling, brain-hungry corpses in pop culture—not to mention our everyday lives.

Drawing on years of research on zombies and zombification, these six lessons offer a fun way to explore and understand the many forces that influence us. You’ll discover how organisms in the natural world, like the jewel wasp, hijack one another for their own ends. You’ll examine cases of social and psychological zombification involving family members and romantic partners. And, of course, you’ll spend plenty of time with fictional zombies—why they fascinate us, how they map onto topics like infectious diseases and disaster preparedness, and what they reveal about our hopes and fears for the future of humanity.

©2023 Audible Originals LLC (P)2023 Audible Originals LLC

Good attempt, lackluster execution

Lesson 1 is zombie behavior in biology. This is what you came for.

Lesson 2 is a disingenuous bait and switch and is not what anyone was looking for when they downloaded this book. It made me consider abandoning this series. It uses the overreaching definition of "zombie" to include: parasite vs symbiosis paradigm, social contracts, etiquette, diplomacy, psychological conditioning, parenting, consumerism, cooperation, relationships, social media.

Case in point: even she herself barely returns to this broad reduction in future lessons.

3 is lessons we can learn about people who enjoy horror and zombie fiction. Thankfully it gets good again here.

4 is an extension to lesson #3 with a fair amount of application to Covid

5 is real world theories in how to cooperate for better survival. She should have skipped the attempt at explaining it through game theory because by rushing it, she is accurate yet misleading on nearly every point. Otherwise good

6 is an ok but kinda unnecessary summary chapter

Overall not bad for free albeit underwhelming.

Zombie cooperation

Fun perspective how to work with others and challenging situations. Another reason to watch zombie movies as research.

So Interesting

An interesting topic made easily consumable with the fun twist of using zombies as an analogy. 

It’s a good simil, but it’s soon out of perspective and overused

By the second chapter any relationship you have is a zombie relationship.
I think she misses the point soon in the development of being overpowered by some external force and being moved by acceptable desires to live and harmonize with other.
Love and friendship, the definition of the book, is a zombification. When exactly are the things they make us feel and look alive.

A smart approach to understanding why we like zombie stories so much!

This is a recollection of thoughts and reflexions on the zombie stories. You will not find a “survival guide” of any kind here, but you will understand better why we like so much the zombie stories and how some of the things we can learn from them actually help us in real scenarios.

Academia can be fun!

This is my kind of fun. I absolutely love learning new scientific information and it’s even better when mixed with silly topics.

Scientific and Entertaining.

I thought it was just written for enjoyment, but the science behind it was thought provoking and clearly shows cooperation far out weighs going it alone in survival situations.

Fun and interesting

Interesting perspective definitely gives you something to think about an enjoyable read two thumbs up

Engaging spin on an important topic

The unique idea to use the zombie apocalypse scenario to explain real world situations is a wonderful way to grab the prospective readers’ attention.
Very interesting with many suggestions how to explore these ideas further.

Interesting

Covered a lot of ground and mixed opinion and specifics to make an interesting lesson.