Buffy in Education

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Elfbwillow

Tomato (Yes, Im Random!)
Joined
Sep 22, 2010
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I did my drama and theatre arts degree a few years back and for my very lengthy dissertation I had no idea what to write considering the dissertations are so long! My tutor was as big a Buffy fan as me and suggested I use my love of the show in my dissertation. I thought he was mad! Who on earth would think of writing a uni dissertation on Buffy the vampire Slayer!? Well, as it happens, me in the end! I combined Buffy with feminism using some slight referances to other pop culture in television, though mainly focusing upon Buffy and managed to pull a 1.1 grade which pushed me into a high honours degree! I couldnt believe it! What I also found funny was, what took others months to write, took me so little time in comparison because i knew Buffy so well and loved it so loved writing it! 😀

Has anyone else used Buffy or any Whedon material in some way in their uni, college or school work? Or am I the only mad yet lucky one!?!
 
I'm a Film & TV student, so it's probably a little easier for me to fit it in, but we had a whole lecture on Joss Whedon when we did TV Authorship, and Buffy got mentioned alot when we did Cult & Fandoms. My friend wrote her essay last semester on Joss Whedon as an auteur :')
 
O
Ollehh
I was thinking of doing Joss in my essay about Auteurism! But it's only film directors, and Joss is mainly TV and I haven't seen any of his films so it'd be kinda difficult.
The last third of my Master's thesis was on using Buffy as a tool to teach literary criticism to college students. 😀
 
Glad that im not the only one! Perhaps it is just the film/tv and drama/theatre literary students who can really fit Buffy into their work, though it is certainly something i enjoyed!
 
In my second year of uni, my American Lit tutor had written a book about Buffy and I had to do a presentation which was a debate between me and a friend about vampires and their humanity - something along those lines - and I opened with the quote from Lie To Me when Buffy says that when you become a vampire a demon sets up shop in your body. My tutor was the only one that got it and she laughed!
 
Last semester I wrote a literary analysis paper on Spike's journey for English class. I also did an oral presentation of that paper. I made a 95 on the paper and a 99 on the speech. I'm also currently working on a paper about fandom and creativity... I'm using Buffy fandom as an example. Oh also last semester I did a speech on domestic violence and abuse in Buffy for sociology. It was kinda funny, I had forgotten about this oral presentation and I get to class and I realize that it was that day. So I sit down with my rubric and spend the first few minutes while a classmate was presenting thinking about what to do. Then it occurred to me... I JUST watched Family before I left for school. I could do that abuse. And then there was the suggested abuse by Xander's parents... and let's not forget the abuse within relationships! haha I got a 99 on that oral presentation too.
 
If anybody is really really interested in just how many different disciplines can or have done analysis of Buffy (or any Whedon stuff), go here and scroll down to "Powerpoints," "Meeting 6," and click on "Whedon Studies." On slides 3 & 4 is a very very very very brief list. 🙂

Or if you trust me enough to get the PowerPoint straight from me, here's the link: http://davidlavery.net/Courses/Cult_TV/Power_Points/Buffy/Whedon_Studies.ppt
 
I'm thinking of attempting to use themes within Buffy like the use of the soul in my philosophy exams in a few weeks time. We did a class on persons and then another class on the soul, so I think I could weave it in as an example. Relating it to fiction and media like Buffy makes the concepts a lot easier to understand.
 
Though having never seen the show at this point, I referenced it in my 10th grade research paper, "The Evolution of Modern Fantasy Literature," along with House of Night, Harry Potter, Vampire Academy, Twilight, Morganville Vampires, and others. It was really a very passing remark about how it was an example of how fantasy, a genre previously dominated by males in both characters and readers, has come to expand and even transfer over to women.
 
A couple of years ago I took a class called "Slavic Vampire" which dealt with the mythology of the vampire from Slavic cultures all the way to vampires in Twilight. It was a lot of fun! We talked about Buffy the very last week of class, but it was totally worth it. I an honestly say there was a time in my life I got to raise my hand and say, "Because Buffy was a badass vampire slayer" and a professor said, "Good point." 😀

I am currently reading The Psychology of Joss Whedon which is a compilation of several different articles written about Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse. It is really good!

And honestly, I'm thinking I might wanna do my masters in gender studies looking at Buffy. Who knows?
 
Z
zobothehobo
That's so epic that you said that and your professor said good point.
I once wrote an English paper comparing gender politics on Buffy and current television. It was really, really bad because it was kind of a throwaway paper that I knew wouldn't count for my grade, but I got an A on it because my teacher loved me for no reason, LOL. or she was on crack. Still not sure...😛

But I totally get what you mean about it being easy to write about. Buffy was one of the first things I thought of when I saw the prompt (which asked us to compare and contrast any two related things), and I'm pretty sure I cranked out that paper in less than an hour.
 
OOOH Prophecygrrl reminded me... I also wrote an essay for my English class last semester comparing Spike as a soulled vampire to Angel. Our assignment was to write about two things that sounded similar on the surface but were actually very different. So I wrote about the two vampires with souls in the Buffyverse and how they're very different. I got a 96. I have never done something related to Buffy that I didn't get an A on.
 
Well, I think it would be interesting and I tend to relate all my projects to things I'm interested in. Being a new Buffy fan and being only 15, I haven't had a lot of time to relate my studies to the Buffyverse but I'm planning on it. As soon as I find something that I can work Buffy into, I will. The closest I have so far is for my speech I am begining with a quote from Angel in Passion about passion. I'm hopefully going to work in more references also.
 
Z
zobothehobo
Holy crap I forgot you were only 15!
My university put on a day-long Buffy Symposium (not a convention) where they had a few crew members and lots of 'experts' come and run lectures on Buffy for a day. 😀
 
VisionGirl
VisionGirl
I don't know whether to love or hate you!
Yes it is. It means I thought you were like 17 because you act WAY more mature than my 15 year old sister... actually wait... she just turned 16. HA! You're a thousand times more mature than her.
Click to expand...

Oh, goodie! This makes me feel good. A lot of people tell me I'm mature. Although, I don't know how I'm more mature than other people my age.
 
Well Elfbwillow, I think it's completely unfair that you started this thread & yet do NOT give us a link! 😉 Seriously, can we read your dissertation?

I'm glad someone mentioned Dollhouse because I'm currently watching it, and I think the material therein is ripe for psychological analysis in particular.
 
Ah, wish I could have used buffy more in my studies, but I don't think I ever managed to. I have already figured out how I would incorporate buffy into my lesson plan should I ever get the chance to teach intro to nas like I hope. I'll use the thanksgiving ep of season 4 (pangs? I can't remember) as a way to look at stereotypes in the media. Basically an excuse to show buffy in class.
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By the way, I did a paper for one of my university classes that was not about Buffy, but was about Buffy message boards... pretty cool! It was about the way language is used in such places.
 
B
Blondie Bear
Nifty! I think there's room for lots of work to be done on the online fandom of Buffy.
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