Since 1968's Night of the Living Dead, zombie culture has steadily limped and clawed its way into the center of popular culture. Today, zombies and vampires have taken over TV shows, comic books, cartoons, video games, and movies. Zombies, Vampires, and Philosophy drags the theories of famous philosophers like Socrates and Descartes into the territory of the undead, exploring questions like: Why do vampires and vegetarians share a similar worldview? Why is understanding zombies the key to health care reform? And what does "healthy in mind and body" mean for vampires and zombies?...

What explains the huge popular following for Dexter, currently the most-watched show on cable, which sympathetically depicts a serial killer driven by a cruel compulsion to brutally slay one victim after another?
Although Dexter Morgan kills only killers, he is not a vigilante animated by a sense of justice but a charming psychopath animated by a lust to kill, ritualistically and bloodily. However his gory appetite is controlled by "Harry's Code," which limits his victims to those who have gotten away with murder, and his job as a blood spatter expert for the Miami police...

From Machiavellian city officials to big-time mobsters, corrupt beat cops, and overzealous G-men, Boardwalk Empire is replete with philosophically compelling characters who find themselves in philosophically interesting situations. This book is directed at thoughtful fans of the show. Here, readers discover parallels between the events in Boardwalk Empire and contemporary political events. Twenty philosophers address issues in political philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, feminism, and metaphysics. Is Nucky Thomson a Machiavellian prince or a Nietzschean superman? Is Jimmy's...

The drama-comedy Girls -- often unfairly written off as Sex and the City for the millennial generation -- has made TV history and provoked controversy for its pitilessly accurate portrayal of four oddly sympathetic twentysomething female characters, notable for their self-absorption, empathy deficits, and ineptitude with relationships. Among other breakthroughs, it is the first show to depict the sex act among the alienated young as nearly always awkward and unfulfilling. In Girls and Philosophy, a team of diverse, sensitive, empathic philosophers approach the world of...

Mr. Robot has been hailed, not only as one of the most haunting and unnerving dramas ever to appear on television, but also as the first accurate popular presentation of how computer hacking and cyberterrorism actually work. Mr. Robot and Philosophy is aimed at thoughtful fans of this addictive show who will welcome the opportunity to explore Elliot Alderson's world from a philosophical perspective.

The developing story of Mr. Robot constantly raises ethical and metaphysical issues. What happens to our personal identity when it's extended into cyberspace and an array...

After a breakup with her boyfriend, Linda wants to know what is it that people seem to have in their relationships, that make them seem perfect, that she doesn't have. When she's paired up with a guy (Jamal) she played in front of her clients at the salon, on a road trip, her view of him changes. And so does her feelings. And as fate would have it, their relationship is challenged from an event that they don't see coming. And it rocks their relationship. Will Linda be able to save it? Or will it be another failed relationship.

2017 saw the return of the weird and haunting TV show Twin Peaks, with most of the orginal cast. This book finally answers that puzzling question: What is Twin Peaks really about? The show is about madness, sanity, the borderline between them, and the necessity of some madness to make sense of sanity. It is about the imagination run wild, moving from metaphysics to pataphysics - the discipline invented by Alfred Jarry, which probes the assumption that anything can happen and discovers the laws governing events which constitute exceptions to all laws.

A posse of philosophers chases after the most exciting philosophical ideas in Westworld.