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SYFY WIRE The Churn

The Churn: Zombies and Policies

By SYFY WIRE Staff
shaun of the dead

What has two heads, four arms, and an unslakable desire for post-apocalyptic content? The hosts of SYFY’s The Expanse podcast, The Churn!

That’s right, while the premiere of Season 5 of The Expanse is still months away, Ana Marie Cox and Daniel W. Drezner could not stop thinking about how it might be diverting to apply their brand of political science-meets-science-fiction analysis to content that has, unfortunately, come very close to home: fiction that addresses world-threatening disease outbreaks. Thus was born The Churn: Pandemic Edition.

The first two episodes are a genuine crossover between The Churn and Dan's day job as a professor of international relations: It's about a textbook he wrote about zombies and international relations, called, fairly enough, Theories of International Relations and Zombies. It's a rather meaty read, so we've split it into two bodies of work ...

Episode One digs into how three major paradigms of international relations would address the emergence of a brain-devouring horde. You might just accidentally learn something, like how when Dan says "actors" he means countries and states and not the likes of Brad Pitt. (Though it is also true that Brad Pitt read Dan’s book to prepare for his role in World War Z!)

But it's not all academic dead weight! We also detour into the White House's coronavirus briefings, feminism, and zombies, and how Dawn of the Dead and Shaun of the Dead offer very different messages about how the world will handle an apocalypse.

Listen below!

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Click here for previous episodes of The Churn.

If you have questions for the cast and crew, tweet us @syfywire with the hashtag #TheChurn.