Buffy Studies is an interdisciplinary study of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise and the issues expressed in the fictional Buffyverse.
History[]
In January 2001, the periodic Slayage: The Online Journal of Buffy Studies began publishing essays on the topic. Since then, books collecting academic essays on Buffy Studies have been published as well, such as Fighting the Forces (2002), Seven Seasons of Buffy (2003), Five Seasons of Angel (2004), Buffy Meets the Academy (2009), The Literary Angel (2010), Buffy Conquers the Academy (2013), among others.
A Buffy academic conference, held in 2004, reported that "Buffyologists" were presenting 190 papers and attracted more than 325 people. College courses across the globe were also devoted to the show, while secondary schools in Australia and New Zealand provided Buffy classes as well.[1]
In 2012, Slate Magazine sought out academic writing on "pop culture favorites known to have provided plenty of PhD fodder over the last couple decades," which included the Alien quadrilogy, The Simpsons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Wire, and The Matrix trilogy. It concluded that "more than twice as many papers, essays, and books have been devoted to the vampire drama than any of our other choices — so many that we stopped counting when we hit 200."[2]
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. The process of breaking a story involves the writers and myself, so a lot of different influences, prejudices, and ideas get rolled up into it. So it really is, apart from being a big pop culture phenom, something that is deeply layered textually episode by episode."[3]
References[]
- ↑ Karin Miller, "These scholars are 'Buffy' buffs." The Boston Globe, May 31, 2004.
- ↑ Daniel Lametti, Aisha Harris, Natasha Geiling, Natalie Matthews-Ramo, "Which Pop Culture Property Do Academics Study the Most?" Slate Magazine, June 11, 2012.
- ↑ "Joss Whedon." The New York Times, May 16, 2003.