With all the buzz surrounding the Halloween premiere of The Walking Dead and the popularity of books like The Zombie Survival Guide and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that The University of Baltimore is offering a course that surveys the zombie phenomenon.   Students in English 333, which is being taught by Arnold Blumberg, a curator at Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, will watch 16 classic zombie movies and read zombie comics (sign me up!).  Students can either write a research paper or create storyboards for their ideal zombie movie.

Those who believe that there is something rotten in the groves of academe have seized on this story as proof of the decay in our institutions of higher learning.  Courses that survey popular culture are easy targets for naysayers, but it should be noted that movies, comics, music and other forms of pop culture are among this country’s most important exports. 

Certainly Blumberg, who has written a book on zombie movies, is an expert on the subject, and as the Associate Press points out, The University of Baltimore is hardly the first institution of higher learning to offer a course on the undead.  Columbia College in Chicago has offered a course on zombies in popular culture for years, and students at Simpson College in Iowa spent last semester writing a book on The History of the Great Zombie War.