Zombie Awareness Month — UofG PGR Blog

Believe it or not: the month of May is Zombie Awareness Month. I'm not making this up. In 2007 the Zombie Research Society was set up to study the scientific, historical and cultural aspects of zombies. It introduced the Zombie Awareness Month and annually encourages people to consider the possibility of a zombie apocalypse and what we would do in case of such an event. In honour of this month, all kind of activities are organised: zombie runs, zombie walks and zombie food drives. (I feel like we as PhD students are already doing a lot of work in zombie appreciation and awareness...this pic shows it perfectly!)

When browsing their website, I stumbled upon a blog post listing the 10 safest countries to be in case of a zombie apocalypse - and, sadly, the United Kingdom is not to be found. One more reason to have a plan handy...to know exactly what we’ll do! Not being a big fan of any kind of zombie movies or series, I have taken to Facebook and asked my connections What would you do in a zombie apocalypse? Here are their answers:

I’m not sure how much some of those would support our survival. Luckily, the Zombie Research Society also provides us with a list of top 10 tips for what to do in a sudden zombie outbreak:

GET TO HIGH GROUND
BUILD A BARRICADE
GRAB FOOD
FIND WEAPONS
GRAB YOUR CELLPHONE
FIND A BATTERY
GRAB A KNIFE
GRAB A BUDDY
REMEMBER WHERE YOU ARE
FIND WATER

Source: Institute for Theoretical Zombie Studies

If you want more info on these, check the original blog post with descriptions for each point. Of course this is all quite superficial and doesn’t really help you in in truly understanding how Zombies work. If you want to become an expert on all things zombie, fret not - Glasgow has its very own Institute for Theoretical Zombie Studies which offers lectures such as Zombie Science: Brain of the Dead.

In case you don’t like theory but want to test your skills in real life, Glasgow again is the place to be: Dread Glasgow offers “a new live action, walk through, zombie based scare attraction in the heart of the city centre” and Escape Room Scotland delivers a 60 minutes adventure with a real live zombie. So what are you waiting for?

Unfortunately, if you’ve only heard about Zombie Awareness Month now (still can't believe it's a whole month... other causes only get a day!), it is already quite late to organise or participate in any zombie activities. But you can still get some friends organised and get your zombie on with a good movie or maybe some zombie food?! And in the meantime, let us know what you would do in a zombie apocalypse!