University of Houston-Victoria

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World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

The First Year Experience Committee is excited to welcome you to our Community of Readers program!

As a way to introduce you to the UHV learning community, you will receive a copy of the book World War Z as our gift to you. Your university faculty, staff and members of the Victoria community will be reading this book as well. Together we will join in a year-long series of activities and events to connect with each other as fellow readers and learners and to explore the themes of the book. This will be your opportunity to join our academic community as a fellow explorer of ideas.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is a documentary-style fictional account of Max Brooks, as a historian who travels the world documenting the stories of those who survived the Zombie War. The book features a multitude of interesting voices captured in an interview-style format with each person sharing their experience of surviving World War Z.

World War Z was chosen as our common reader by the committee for many reasons. First, World War Z is an inventive novel that mixes history, science fiction, psychology and politics. Through this type of interdisciplinary study, we'll have an opportunity to experience how learning one subject matter helps us better understand other subject areas. Second, by placing serious issues (war, pandemics, policy-failures) into a fictional context (a zombie uprising), we are able to take a fresh and innovative look at broad issues. Don't let the "zombie-ness" of the book fool you – it has much to offer to our exploration of East-West and North-South geopolitical relations. And, finally, it is a gripping, page-turning story that is sure to capture our collective interest and bring us together as a community of readers.

We are planning a number of exciting activities to celebrate the book and to learn more about its themes. We will have film and video presentations, guest speakers on the science and history related to the story and other zombie-related events! The book will also be integrated into your First Year Seminar course.

In the meantime, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact us at: readers@uhv.edu. We look forward to meeting you and exploring the ideas of World War Z together!

The First Year Experience Committee

Elizabeth Rhoades, PhD, Co-Chair
Casey Akins, Co-Chair
Charles Alcorn, PhD
Esperanza Camargo, PhD
Paul Carlson, PhD
Uppinder Mehan, PhD
Kyle Schlesinger, PhD
Dmitri Sobolev, PhD
Alireza Tavakkoli, PhD