Scholarship at UWindsor

The University of Windsor hosted a conference on

What if Zombies were real? The sheer volume of zombies in popular culture and the degree to which the zombie metaphor has spread to the mainstream begs the question, how would you survive a zombie apocalypse? This was the tongue-in-cheek approach that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did to help people think about disaster preparedness.

But preparing for the emergency scenario belies what it would take to deal with the concomitant collapse of civilization. The attraction of the zombie metaphor is that it asks people to confront what society would be without government, emergency services, military, or commerce. It also suggests that in order for civilization to survive it will need to rely on multiple disciplines working together. To explore how to survive in a post-apocalyptic world is the theme of our first interdisciplinary conference.

The Canadian Academic of Health Sciences defines interdisciplinary research as a “team of researchers from different disciplines that comes together around an important and challenging issue, the research question(s) for which is/are determined by a shared understanding in an interactive and iterative process”. Interdisciplinarity is uniquely positioned to discuss and explore the solutions to survival.

Sponsors

This conference has received generous donations through the University of Windsor from:

• Alumni Association
• The Office of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation