Reading Groups

Zombie Capitalism: The Monstrous Ends of Capital with Chris Holmes

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3 sessions Thursdays, 6:00 pm EDT - 7:30 pm EDT October 16 to December 4, 2025

The Center for Fiction

The ‘With Books’ option includes the titles required for this group at an additional 10% discount from our Bookstore.

Meeting Dates:
10/16, 11/6, 12/4
In Person at The Center for Fiction

Despite the predominance of capitalism in the global economy, the system increasingly appears to be imploding under the weight of its inequities, brutalities, and neoliberal drive to commodify everything—humans included. It’s no surprise that contemporary writers are turning their fictional lenses toward a speculative future in which the undead remains of capitalism lurch and groan their way through the ruins of culture and society.

Ling Ma’s Severance uses zombies, in part, to portray contemporary work-life imbalance. Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman interrogates late stage capitalism through thrilling formal, genre, and stylistic choices. And C Pam Zhang’s Land of Milk and Honey is a dystopian narrative about the end of food and food culture as a whole.

As we read each book, we’ll return to a guiding question: How do these novels imagine horrific decline while also proposing new kinds of intentional communities that might stand outside the violence of a decaying system?

What to read in advance of the first meeting: Severance. It is recommended—but not required—that you watch the pilot of the television adaptation on Apple TV+.

What to expect from this reading group: A highly conversational and lively discussion with interchange throughout.

Reading List:

Severance by Ling Ma
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang

Led by

Chris Holmes

Chris Holmes

Chris Holmes is Professor and Chair of Literatures in English at Ithaca College. He is the creator and host of the literary podcast Burned by Books. He is also the co-producer and host of Novel Dialogue, the podcast of the Society for Novel Studies. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, was published by Bloomsbury. Since 2011, he has been the co-organizer of the New Voices Literary Festival at Ithaca College. He received his PhD from Brown University.

About this series

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