Journal of 21st-century Writings LITERATURE ARTICLE Volume 3, Number 1 C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-century Writings © Gylphi Limited, Canterbury, UK ISSN 2045-5216 (Print) ISSN 2045-5224 (Online) | 03_01| 2014 (53–73) http://www.gylphi.co.uk/c21 Genre, Materiality, and Consciousness: From Philosophical Zombies to Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead MARK PEDRETTI Case Western Reserve University, USA ABSTRACT Philosophy of mind has long wrestled with the problem of the ‘zombie’, a being lacking self-consciousness, as a refutation to purely materialist ontologies. This article contends that this philosophical debate can be informed by: (1) a renewed discussion of matter and objects as generative and agentic, rather than passive and inert; and (2) the popular flesh-eating zombies of fiction and film. Attempting to synthesize the philosophical zombie debate leads to a position of epiphenomenalism, where consciousness may be materially determined but not materially explicable. Such a position describes the zombies in Robert Kirkman’s ongoing graphic novel series The Walking Dead, which is very much concerned with the experience of ‘what it is like’ to be a zombie. This suggests both an innovation in the zombie genre, and highlights the speculative potential of fiction to work through philosophical problems. KEYWORDS consciousness • materialism • mind • phenomenology • Robert Kirkman • The Walking Dead • zombies