zombies love them, hate them, you can't escape them.

In pop culture, they are one of the few ways we feel at ease talking about death,

be at the death of society, death at the hands of our collective hubris, or our fragility as

mortals, to name a few. Mindless, brain-eating, ever advancing, we both run from them and run to them.

And we've made them accessible in every form imaginable.

These days, there seems to be a zombie for everybody.

The gory, ruthless zombies of AMC's The Walking Dead, the Parable zombies of the Romero

Classics or 28 Days Later, even heartwarming hopeful zombies like in the zombie

rom-bodies.

There are a million tropes and symbols associated with zombie movies,

zombie lore, but at a base level, all zombies force us to confront our inevitable death and decay.

Perhaps the most terrifying thing for us to ponder is how death transforms us.

Is death empty, meaningless, alone? is death

empty, meaningless, a loss of autonomy,

or can it be more?

Can we still somehow in some way

continue to exist as ourselves after death.

I'm Louise Hang and this is death in the afternoon.

Today we have a special, if slightly unusual episode for you.

Caitlin has chosen to sit this one out.

Don't worry, she'll be back in our next installment.

So that Sarah and I can indulge in an episode that's a little bit spooky.

...