Buffy Meets the Academy

This book presents serious academic scholarship on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It differs from other works because it uses Buffy as a primary text and not as a secondary instrument to explore other concepts. In doing so, it demonstrates that popular culture studies should be approached with the same serious attention that is paid to classic philosophy and other long-established fields. Essays assemble the Buffy canon and explore how Buffy treats Shakespeare, comics, power, sisterhood, apocalyptic revisionism, folklore, feminism, redemption, patriarchy, identity and education. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Kevin K. Durand is Math and Physics Professor at the LISA Academy College Preparatory School in Little Rock, Arkansas. He has published broadly in philosophy, religion, and ethics.

Edited by Kevin K. Durand

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 230
Bibliographic Info: bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2009
pISBN: 978-0-7864-4355-0
eISBN: 978-0-7864-5374-0
Imprint: McFarland

Introduction

Pop Culture Meets the Academy
KEVIN K. DURAND      1

PART I. POWER AND THE BUFFY CANON
Canon Fodder: Assembling the Text
KEVIN K. DURAND      9
Canon Fodder Revisited Buffy Meets the Bard
BRENT LINSLEY            17
Genre and the Impact on Storytelling in Season Eight
LEIGH CLEMONS      25
Buffy’s Seven-Season Initiation
DAVID FRITTS           32
It’s All about Power
KEVIN K. DURAND      45
Buffy Never Goes It Alone: The Rhetorical Construction of Sisterhood in the Final Season
SUSAN PAYNE-MULLIKEN and VALERIE RENEGAR      57

PART II. BUFFY MEETS THE CLASSICS
King Lear, Buffy, and Apocalyptic Revisionism
CLINTON P.E. ATCHLEY      81
Grimm Realities: Buffy and the Uses of Folklore
ELIZABETH BRIDGES      91
The Failed Quest for “Anti-Self-Consciousness”
DENISE TISCHLER MILLSTEIN      104
Buffy’s Insight into Wollstonecraft and Mill
KEVIN K. DURAND      115

PART III. BUFFY, THE SCOOBIES, AND BEYOND
Buffy’s Dream in Surprise
MELANIE WILSON      125
Complexes My Mother Left Me Spike Meets Robin Wood
BRENT LINSLEY      131
She Believes in Me Angel, Spike, and Redemption
MELANIE WILSON      137
Cordelia Chase as Failed Feminist Gesture
AMIJO COMEFORD      150
Why the Cheese Man Is an Integral Part of Restless
MELANIE WILSON      161
Wesley as Tragic Hero
REBECCA BOBBITT      169
The Battle Against the Patriarchal Forces of Darkness
KEVIN K. DURAND      176

PART IV. BUFFY AND THE CLASSROOM
Concepts of Identity When Nancy Drew Meets Buffy
LAUREN SCHULTZ      187
The High School Education of Buffy Summers
KEITH FUDGE          203
Keeping Buffy in the Classroom
TAMARA WILSON      211

About the Contributors      219
Index      223