Buffy studies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Buffy studies is an academic field which began in the late 1990s and is linked to the period of Girl Power and third-wave feminism. These links are explored indepth, for example, in Irene Karras "The Third Wave's Final girl: Buffy the Vampire Slayer".[1]
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[edit] Background
Buffy Studies is a subset of the academic field of cultural studies. It explores issues related to gender as expressed through the content of the television program Buffy the Vampire Slayer and to a lesser extent, Angel. Such work is concerned with the scholarly study and exploration of Joss Whedon's popular television series that take place in the fictional Buffyverse.
Neda Ulaby of National Public Radio describes Buffy as having a "special following among academics, some of whom have staked a claim in what they call "Buffy Studies."[2] Though not widely recognised as a distinct discipline, the term "Buffy studies" is commonly used amongst the academic Buffy-related writings[3]. Such studies are also sometimes referred to as 'Buffyology'.
[edit] Development as academic field
The debut of Buffy (1997-2003) eventually led to the publication of a number of books and hundreds of articles examining the themes of the show from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives including sociology, psychology, philosophy, and women's studies. Since January 2001 Slayage: The Online Journal of Buffy Studies has published essays on the topic quarterly, and it continues to do so. Fighting The Forces was published in 2002, and since then many more Buffy books have been published by academic book publishers with more books planned for release before the end of 2006. There have also been a number of international conferences on the topic[4]. "College courses across the globe are devoted to the show, and secondary schools in Australia and New Zealand also provide Buffy classes." [5] The topic can even be undertaken as a Master's degree in London[6]. Increasingly Angel is being analysed alongside its predessessor, e.g. in the recent 2005 publication, Reading Angel.
The creator of Buffy, Joss Whedon has responded to the scholarly reaction to his series: "I think it's great that the academic community has taken an interest in the show. I think it's always important for academics to study popular culture, even if the thing they are studying is idiotic. If it's successful or made a dent in culture, then it is worthy of study to find out why. Buffy, on the other hand is, I hope, not idiotic. We think very carefully about what we're trying to say emotionally, politically, and even philosophically while we're writing it... it really is, apart from being a pop-culture phenomenon, something that is deeply layered textually episode by episode."[7]
The response to this scholary attention has had its critics. The English lecturer, Mary Graber is unimpressed with the growing presence of Buffy in Universities, she wrote in an article "most parents who send their children off to college have no idea of what is being taught in the humanities classes: pornography appreciation, analyses of the clothing of transvestites, Native American scalp dances, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."[8] Jes Battis who authored Blood Relations in Buffy and Angel admits that study of the Buffyverse "invokes an uneasy combination of enthusiasm and ire", and meets "a certain amount of disdain from within the halls of the academy"[9].
[edit] Contributors and scholarship
Among the academic contributors to the study are Yale University's David Graeber, professor of anthropology ("Rebel Without A God"); University of Maryland's Asim Ali, Department of American Studies ("Community, Language, and Postmodernism at the Mouth of Hell"; GraceAnne A. DeCandido, M. L. S. ("Rupert Giles and Search Tools for Wisdom in Buffy the Vampire Slayer"); Stanford University's Brian Thomas, a doctoral candidate in ecology ("Vampire Ecology in the Jossverse"); Steven C. Schlozman, M. D. (""Vampires and Those Who Slay Them"); Beth Braun, of the Journal of Popular Film and Television ("The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Ambiguity of Evil in Supernatural Representations"); and Deborah Netburn of the New York Observer ("Media Studies Does Buffy—And Buffy, as Always, Prevails").
[edit] Selected scholarship
- Early, Frances and Kathleen Kennedy, Athena's Daughters: Television's New Women Warriors, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2003.
- Early, Frances. "The Female Just Warrior Reimagined: From Boudicca to Buffy": 55-65.
- Tjardes, Sue. "If You're Note Enjoying it, You're Doing Something Wrong": Textual and Viewer Constructions of Faith, the Vampire Slayer": 66-77.
- Parpart, Lee. "Actions, Chicks, Everything: On-Line Interviews with Male Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer": 78-91.
- Chin, Vivian. "Buffy? She's Like Me, She's Not Like Me --She's Rad": 92-102.
- Heinecken, Dawn. "Chapter Five: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Body in Relation." In Warrior Women of Television: A Feminist Cultural Analysis of the New Female Body in Popular Media, by Dawn Heinecken. New York: P. Lang, 2003: 91-131.
- Hopkins, Susan, Girl Heroes: the New Force in Popular Culture, Pluto Press Australia, 2002.
- Inness, Sherrie A. (ed.) Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
- Karras, Irene. "The Third Wave's Final Girl: Buffy the Vampire Slayer." thirdspace 1:2 (March 2002).
- Magoulick, Mary. "Frustrating Female Heroism: Mixed Messages in Xena, Nikita, and Buffy." The Journal of Popular Culture, Volume 39 Issue 5 (October 2006).
- O'Day, Marc. "Beauty in Motion: Gender, Spectacle and Action Babe Cinema." In Action and Adventure Cinema, by Yvonne Tasker. New York: Routledge, 2004: 201-218.
- Ono, Kent A. "To Be a Vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Race and ("Other") Socially Marginalizing Positions on Horror TV." In Fantasy Girls : Gender in the New Universe of Science Fiction and Fantasy Television by Elyce Rae Helford. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000: 163-186.
[edit] Online works
All Things Philosophical - A comprehensive guide to philosophy and ethics relating to the Buffyverse.
Buffy Studies Bibliography - Extensive list of all published materials such as essays in print and online journals and collections, theses and dissertations, books on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and other Joss Whedon-related works such as Firefly, and some unpublished conference papers.
Slayage: The Online Journal of Buffy Studies - A fully electronic peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the scholarly exploration of the creative works of Joss Whedon - especially Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Hosted at Middle Tennessee State University, it is edited by David Lavery and Rhonda Wilcox. New issues appear approximately every three months.
Tea at the Ford - Literary discussion of Buffy/Angel. Most of the members have University educations in English.
[edit] Additonal Works
Additional books include:
| Image | Book Title BtVS = Buffy the Vampire Slayer |
First released | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Aesthetics of Culture in BtVS | January 2006 | |||
| Matthew Pateman's examination of the cultural commentary contained in Buffy. | |||||
 |
Bite Me: Narrative Structures in BtVS | May 2003 | |||
| Relating narrative structures with: audience pleasure, mise en scène, and the use of symbolism and metaphor. | |||||
 |
Blood Relations | June 2005 | |||
| Explores conceptions of family explored in Buffy and Angel. | |||||
 |
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BFI TV Classics S.) | December 2005 | |||
| Extended overview of the history of Buffy. | |||||
 |
BtVS and Philosophy | March 2003 | |||
| Links classical philosophy to the ethics in Buffy. | |||||
 |
Fighting The Forces | April 2002 | |||
| Looks at the struggle to examine meaning in Buffy. | |||||
 |
Five Seasons of Angel | October 2004 | |||
| Science-fiction novelist and other writers contribute a collection of essays on Angel. | |||||
 |
Joss Whedon: The Genius Behind Buffy | May 2003 | |||
| A short biography of Joss Whedon focusing on his work in filma and television. | |||||
 |
Reading Angel | September 2005 | |||
| Collection covering many topics including the cinematic aesthetics of Angel, its music, shifting portrayals of masculinity, the noir Los Angeles setting, and the superhero. | |||||
 |
Reading the Vampire Slayer | March 2004 | |||
| The book gives in depth analysis highlighting the many hidden metaphors held within Buffy and Angel. | |||||
 |
Seven Seasons of Buffy | September 2003 | |||
| Science-fiction novelist and other writers contribute a collection of essays on Buffy. | |||||
 |
Sex and the Slayer | April 2005 | |||
| Sex and the Slayer provides an introduction to feminism through Buffy. | |||||
 |
Slayer Slang | July 2003 | |||
| An in depth study on the post-modern youth language used in Buffy. | |||||
 |
Televised Morality: The Case of BtVS | April 2004 | |||
| Book arguing that TV helps shapes society's moral values, and in this case specifically Buffy. | |||||
 |
What Would Buffy Do: BtVS as Spiritual Guide | April 2004 | |||
| Look at the spiritual guidelines on display in Buffy despite the atheism of the show's creator. | |||||
 |
Why Buffy Matters | October 2005 | |||
| Rhonda Wilcox, presents an argument for Buffy as an art form as worthy of respect and acknowledgment as film or literature. | |||||
[edit] Areas of study
Buffyology includes academic studies of Buffy in relation to:
- anthropology
- chronology (narrative and historical timelines)
- demonlogy (the study of demons)
- ecology
- existentialism
- feminism
- film studies
- history (both ancient and medieval)
- homosexuality
- linguistics
- magic (the arts of enchantment)
- musicology
- narratology (storytelling)
- nomenclature (naming conventions and significance)
- philosophy (including ethics and metaphysics)
- psychology
- religion
- sociology
- theology
- vampirology (the study of vampires)
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ "The Third Wave's Final girl: Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
- ^ Ulaby, Neda, "- 'Buffy Studies'", National Public Radio (May 13, 2003)
- ^ Lavery, David, & Wilcox, Rhonda V., Slayage.tv (2001-). The term is in use from the full title of Slayage: Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies, and thus has become used in essays by those who contribute to scholarship relating to Buffy. For example, Cantwell uses the term in her essay "While such studies, particularly in Buffy studies, have explored these knowledges, and modes of community 'politics' and interaction" (Marianne Cantwell, "Collapsing the Extra/Textual: Passions and Intensities of Knowledge in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Online Fan Communities", 2004)
- ^ See: "Boffins get their teeth into Buffy", Bbc (18 October, 2002). "Vampires: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil" Wickedness.net (2002). "The Slayage Conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Paper Archive", Slayage.tv (2004). These sources report on three conferences respectivly: "Blood, Text and Fears" (University of East Anglia, UK, 2002), Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil (Budapest, Hungary, 2003), and "The Slayage Conderence" (Nasville, USA, 2003).
- ^ Scholars lecture on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', Ctv.ca (May 29, 2004).
- ^ "Study Buffy at university", Metro.co.uk (May 16, 2006) MA course at Brunel University, West London.
- ^ Shuttleworth, Ian, "Bite me, professor" Financial Times, citing interview from New York Times (September 11, 2003).
- ^ Graber, Mary, "Colleges open minds close door on sense", Ajc.com (2006).
- ^ Battis, Jes, Blood Relations, McFarland & Company (June 2005), page 9.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] Key links
- Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies
- Buffy The Patriarchy Slayer - Bibliography of scholarly articles on Buffy Studies.
- All Things Philosophical - Comprehensive guide to philosophy and ethics relating to the Buffyverse.
- Buffyology - Extensive bibliography of academic articles available online or in print.
- Tea at the Ford - Literary discussion of Buffy/Angel
[edit] References in the media
- National Public Radio - 'Buffy Studies'
- BBC.co.uk - Boffins get their teeth into Buffy
- Financial Times -
- Lancasteronline.com - "'Buffy' the academic slayer"
- Ajc.com - "Colleges' open minds close door on sense"
- Salon.com - Report on Buffy conference (article featured on front page in November 2002)
- Ctv.ca - Scholars lecture on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'
