Media often portrays zombies with a limp, and sometimes a growl, stalking toward their prey. Dennis Cutchins, on the other hand, believes they look much more mundane—they look just like you and me.
According to Professor Dennis Cutchins (American Literature, Adaptation Studies), we’re living in a zombie apocalypse. Unlike the creatures depicted in Plants vs. Zombies or The Walking Dead, the zombies of our current apocalypse don’t feed on brains as much as they do isolation and mindlessness—actions that we, in many cases, exhibit every day. At the Britsch Citizenship Lecture held November 6, 2025, Cutchins introduced the antidote to this zombie-like behavior: active and intentional citizenship.
Zombies Hidden in Plain Sight
Though sometimes hard to spot, apocalyptic themes are manifested everywhere––sometimes even in education. “I believe that we are fascinated by the idea of the zombie partly because the world we live in makes us feel a little bit like zombies,” Cutchins said. “Perhaps we’re working mindlessly at dead-end jobs or scrolling endlessly through social media, compelled, as it were, by a zombifying algorithm. Maybe we’re taking classes that we really don’t care about to get degrees that we’re not sure we want.”
Cutchins finds parallels between the fictitious zombie apocalypses portrayed in media and the modern world by examining the idea of community. This notion has shifted significantly over the years, contributing to what public health experts refer to as an “epidemic of loneliness.”
The increase in isolation has led to a rise of numerous zombie-like traits manifested as doomscrolling, going through life passively, and practicing avoidance, to name a few. These behaviors, Cutchins claimed, “seem to represent that antithesis of citizens: They are selfish in the extreme, unable to imagine the needs of others. They are violent consumers, in the most literal sense.” He continued, “Zombies do not have relationships with others, and they certainly are not endowed with agency. They are, in a word, soulless.”
Living in an Apocalyptic World
This zombie apocalypse, Cutchins proposed, does have a solution: If mindless or purposeless behavior fuels the apocalypse, then intentional and sincere efforts in both education and community settings may be the remedy. He said, “Many of the best teaching moments and learning moments that I’ve had in my career have had very little to do with teaching and a great deal to do with being a citizen.”
Citizenship, he postulated, consists of building the invisible infrastructures that provide room for community members to grow and change. Bolstering citizenship means creating environments that foster creativity, that encourage genuine interactions, and that discourage thoughtless or purposeless behaviors. While these traits can certainly be found in classes across BYU campus, Cutchins noted that he first learned the importance of citizenship at home.
Preparation Against the Apocalypse
Cutchins recalled learning to read alongside his father who hadn’t learned to read in school. “Despite the lack of educational opportunities that both my mother and stepfather faced, my brother and I grew up with the assumption that learning was good and necessary,” he explained. Cutchins and his brother went on to receive graduate degrees with the support and infrastructure that his parents provided at home.
He emphasized the importance of this type of citizenship, explaining that creating infrastructures both at home and at school will provide protection against the zombie apocalypse. In Cutchins’s experience, supporting and maintaining citizenship while at BYU has made the biggest impact on him as both a professor and a learner. He explained that fighting the zombie-like behavior occurs when professors make efforts to interact with students and remember their names; when individuals take time away from social media; and when society condemn zombie traits, such as violence, selfishness, and hatred.
These practices, he believes, can transform BYU campus, making it a haven from the apocalyptic world. “From where we sit in late 2025, BYU seems inevitable,” he said. But “nothing about it was inevitable or easy. [BYU] came about because of intentional, hard work—and that is citizenship.”
Watch Cutchins's full lecture here.