A foremost authority on the psychology of zombie culture visits Northeast State on Oct. 25 to deliver two lectures at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
Dr. Brendan Riley’s lecture, “Zombies and Popular Culture,” explores how zombies help us think more deeply about the human condition and why hordes of walking dead have become so popular with modern society. Both lectures are being held at the Wellmont Regional Center for the Performing Arts Theater on the Blountville campus, adjacent to Tri-Cities Regional Airport.
Brendan Riley is an Associate Professor of English at Columbia College Chicago, a liberal arts school for the performing and media arts. Riley may be best known around campus for his popular J-session class, “Zombies in Popular Media,” which has been featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Chicago RedEye, and CNN Online, among many other places.
When not examining the undead’s role in the modern world, he teaches Composition, New Media, and Media Studies classes, and he also serves as coordinator for the College English Department’s Technology and Pedagogy programs. He has been published on a wide variety of subjects. Among his recent published essays are: Zombie People: The Complicated Nature of Personhood in The Walking Dead and The E-Dead: Zombies in the Digital Age.
His lecture is free and open to the public. For more information contact 423.279.7669 or jpkelly@NortheastState.edu.
