Political Science Educator: volume 27, issue 2
Reflections
By Kristen Rosero (roserok@wit.edu)
Zombies used to be a fun way for me to teach International Relations. Now, I’m not so sure. For some context, I teach political science at a polytechnic institution where none of my students are political science majors. This has always presented both a challenge and an opportunity for me. The challenge is often getting them interested in the material and seeing its broader value. The opportunity is that I can customize classes in many ways to speak to their interests. Inspired by Daniel Drezner’s Theories of International Relations… and Zombies, I originally designed my course on International Relations and Science Fiction in 2015 as a way to have fun with a very standard subject in political science, and hopefully tap into some pop culture interests on the part of my students to get them engaged. The idea was to use science fiction examples to illustrate International Relations concepts and culminates in an informal model UN simulation of a worldwide zombie outbreak. The course was a success and has filled whenever I have taught it since then and it was fun. In a post-pandemic world, though, I find myself reflecting on how a class like this fits—or no longer fits.
In many ways, the class is a typical International Relations class—covering the broad IR theories and a number of general topics from Terrorism to Climate Change—but with a twist. In addition to referencing current news stories and salient real-world events, it makes use of examples from science fiction films and TV shows as pedagogical tools for helping students to understand international relations. While the Drezner text serves as a great entry into exploring the various theories of International Relations, we also explore a broad range of science fiction subgenres to illustrate important concepts and global challenges: from the Intergalactic Senate in Star Wars and Star Trek’s Prime Directive to District 9 and the Twilight Zone. What was exciting and unexpected about developing and tinkering with this course over the years was that it served as a learning experience for me as well, as I was able to explore these critical topics from entirely new perspectives.
One of the most successful elements of this course was the UN simulation to which the last few weeks of class were devoted. The simulation models several emergency meetings of the UN General Assembly and Security Council. Their task is to reach an agreement on a Security Council resolution to address a global zombie outbreak. This particular scenario allowed me to tie in the zombie theme introduced with the Drezner text and to use the hypothetical crisis as motivation for international cooperation and UN action. Throughout the simulation, each student represents a particular country and must debate and negotiate driven by their country’s national interests. Daily updates are provided as the crisis continues to unfold and develop. Invariably, it is silly and raucous. Yet the end result has always been a resolution which reflects an understanding of the operation of the United Nations, current relationships among states and the nature of the international system. It was incredibly rewarding for me as a political science professor to hear all these engineering students arguing about things like sovereignty and to see that they truly internalized the concept and its implications for the international system.
My experience with this simulation is by no means unique. There is plenty of literature out there that supports the value of simulations for political science education (McIntosh 2001; Chasek 2005; Asal & Kratoville 2013; Sears 2018; Hammond & Albert 2020; Leib & Ruppel 2020 just to name a few). Nor even is the undead approach to teaching the topic. I am certainly not the only one who has used the idea of a zombie outbreak.. Truth be told, I am not nearly that creative. My original inspiration came directly from the official Model UN resources (UNA-USA 2019) and a mini-simulation that has been used by countless model UN clubs and classes. Many fields have applied and sought to demonstrate the effectiveness of various zombie simulations to demonstrate the complexities of real-world challenges in a way that force students to suspend their disbelief and think creatively. For example, Jackson et al. (2020) found a simulated zombie-themed pandemic to bring important collaborative problem-solving to preclinical medical students while integrating virology, population health, and bioethics concepts. Zombie simulations have been found to be effective in teaching mathematic modeling of infectious diseases (Lofgren et al. 2016) to business operations (Horner 2015; Horio & Arrowsmith 2015; Robichaud 2020). And zombies have of course demonstrated their worth in the study of international relations (Brandle 2020; Horn et al. 2016, Blanton 2013).
The real question I find myself reflecting on though is does the class and assignment make sense now?
The UN Simulation has always been a highlight on top of what was already an enjoyable course. For all the iterations I have taught of this class, it has always been a blast to get to this point and watch students as they joke about zombies while also applying all of the concepts discussed all semester. It has allowed students to make metaphorical connections to real-life problems like terrorism, collective security, and of course… pandemics.
And therein lies the issue with this class now. It has become almost too real.
As Drezner himself writes, “Of all the baddies in the horror genre, zombies are the perfect metaphor for a pandemic.” In his April 2020 piece entitled “What I Learned About the Coronavirus World From Watching Zombie Flicks” he points out that the parallels between zombie film tropes and the breakdowns in cooperation seen during the COVID-19 outbreak are “unsettling.” Der Derian and Gara (2021) ask “Is COVID-19 our first global zombie event?”
In March 2020, I received an email from a student who had taken this course with me the previous term. He began with the sort of “never thought I would actually use this stuff” kind of thing a professor just loves to hear, but went on to express how quickly that changed and how surprisingly relevant our fictional zombie outbreak turned out to be in light of the unfolding pandemic. That in fact, the class was one of the most useful he had taken up to that point.
I found myself coming back to this email a number of times throughout the pandemic. On the one hand it is oddly gratifying. What professor does not want to hear that their course had an impact? On the other hand, it is a bit sad. It was never my intent for the simulation to be quite so realistic. For so many, the pandemic was personal. We lost loved ones and we have seen the way we work, and learn, and interact with others completely upended.
I recognized all this when I decided to teach the course one more time in the Fall of 2021. I was torn between the subject matter being incredibly important and timely, and hitting a little too close to home. I began the course completely upfront with this and invited feedback from students if they had any concerns about the material. It might be worth noting here that Robichaud’s Leadership Simulation: Patient Zero for Harvard Business now has the caveat: “The concept for this simulation was developed by the author in 2015. However, it presents visual content and scenarios that may be unsettling to students in light of the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. Educators should consider whether this simulation is appropriate for the intended participants.” An important point to make these days.
Ultimately, there were no real concerns among my students, and they did have fun with it. But it was different this time. And it was not just because we were all required to mask up in class and test regularly per our university policies, or that (perhaps fittingly) because of a close contact situation in the class shortly before the end of the semester, we ended up switching the last two classes and simulation days to Zoom. There was just a lot less need to use their imaginations in finding solutions to our simulation challenge. All they had to do was draw from the news.
Altogether, I was left a bit nostalgic for the days when I could use a zombie pandemic as a far-fetched imagined scenario, rather than something we have lived through. But perhaps all is not lost. The class could always be taught again utilizing a different scenario for the UN simulation. After all, there is still the possibility of alien invasion…
References
Asal, Victor and Jayson Kratoville. 2013. “Constructing International Relations Simulations: Examining the Pedagogy of IR Simulations Through a Constructivist Learning Theory Lens.” Journal of Political Science Education 9(2): 132-143
Blanton, Robert G. 2013. “Zombies and International Relations: A Simple Guide for Bringing the Undead into Your Classroom.” International Studies Perspectives 14(1): 1-13
Brandle, Shawna M. 2020. “Games, Movies, and Zombies: Making IR Fun for Everyone.” Journal of Political Science Education 16(4): 459-478.
Chasek, Pamela S. 2005. “Power Politics, Diplomacy and Role Playing: Simulating the UN Security Council’s Response to Terrorism.” International Studies Perspectives 6(1): 1-19.
Der Derian, James and Phillip Gara. 2021. “Life, Death, and the Living Dead in the Time of COVID-19.” Cultural Politics 17(1): 102-113
Drezner, Daniel. 2020. “What I Learned About the Coronavirus World From Watching Zombie Flicks.” Foreign Policy. 11 April 2020. Available at: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/11/what-i-learned-about-coronavirus-world-from-zombie-movies/. Accessed 4 April 2022.
Hammond, Augustine & Craig Douglas Albert. 2020. “Learning by Experiencing: Improving Student Learning Through a Model United Nations Simulation.” Journal of Political Science Education 16(4): 441-458
Horio, Brant. M., and Nathan Arrowsmith. 2015. “The Pedagogy Of Zombies: Given their Cult-Like Following, Many Educators have Turned to Zombies to Act as Attention Grabbing Pedagogical Tools.” OR/MS Today 42(5): 30.
Horn, Laura, Olivier Rubin, and Laust Schouenborg, 2016. Undead Pedagogy: How a Zombie Simulation Can Contribute to Teaching International Relations, International Studies Perspectives 17(2): 187–201.
Horner, Peter. 2015. “Zombies as Teaching Tools?” OR/MS Today, 42(5): 6.
Jackson Jennifer M., E Shen, and Timothy R. Peters. 2020. “The Zombie Virus Pandemic: An Innovative Simulation Integrating Virology, Population Health, and Bioethics for Preclinical Medical Students.” MedEdPORTAL 16
Leib, Julia, and Samantha Ruppel. 2020. “The Learning Effects of United Nations Simulations in Political Science Classrooms.” European Political Science 19: 336–351
Lofgren, Eric T., Kristy M. Collins, Tara C. Smith and Reed A. Cartwright. 2016. “Equations of the End: Teaching Mathematical Modeling Using the Zombie Apocalypse.” Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education 17(1): 137–142.
McIntosh, Daniel. 2001. The Uses and Limits of the Model United Nations in an International Relations Classroom. International Studies Perspectives 2(3): 269-280.
Robichaud, Christopher. 2020. Leadership Simulation: Patient Zero. Brighton, MA: Harvard Business Publishing.
Sears, Nathan Alexander. 2018. “War and Peace in International Relations Theory: A Classroom Simulation.” Journal of Political Science Education 14(2): 222-239
UNA-USA (2019). “Simulation: The Zombie Pandemic.” MyDiplomat. Available at: . https://mydiplomat.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/MyDiplomat_Zombie-Pandemic-Sim_June2019.pdf. Accessed 4 April 2022
Kristen Rosero is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities at Wentworth Institute of Technology.
Published since 2005, The Political Science Educator is the newsletter of the Political Science Education Section of the American Political Science Association. All issues of The Political Science Educator can be viewed on APSA Connects Civic Education page.
Editors: Colin Brown (Northeastern University), Matt Evans (Northwest Arkansas Community College)
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APSA Educate has republished The Political Science Educator since 2021. Any questions or corrections to how the newsletter appears on Educate should be addressed to educate@apsanet.org
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