Help My college paper on Buffy - I need help!!!!

[Alicia214]

Hello my fellow BTVS/Whedon lovers!

I have loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the past ten years, and my passion is getting others exposed to the mind-boggling, brilliant, and meaningful works of Joss Whedon. I am finally taking a college course which allows students to write about whatever they want. So of course, I picked Buffy as my topic and now I don't know exactly where to start.:/ I definitely know what I want to say, I mean Buffy is the best show ever. The writing is amazing and it is truly a literary masterpiece that can be studied. Although, my teacher didn't think it was a suitable topic. So I joined just about ten minutes ago to prove him wrong and write the best darn paper he will ever see, and I need you're guys help! Basically it is a 15 page research paper, I need 12-14 sources, it can't be biased, and I have to argue something. I was thinking a general approach, as to why people should watch the show, or maybe why people are embarrassed to admit to the fact they watch Buffy... I'm trying to avoid a critical analysis of the show, but I'm having a hard time trying to prove any point without doing that. So, I figured my best bet with figuring this out would be to ask some Buffy lovers and experts, such as yourselves! Does anyone have any advice? Or maybe some suggestions as to where to look for information? And once I do narrow down my topic, would you be interested in doing a survey? I want to write something on behalf of all Buffy/Whedon lovers! Thank you for hearing me out, I would love any advice, and sorry if this is really long or in the wrong place on the site. I'm soooo excited to write this!!!!! Happy Hunting!🙂

 

[zobothehobo]

I would suggest narrowing it down if you didn't have to have so many sources... but with a topic like "why should people watch the show" it's kind of really impossible to have any non-biases sources. Maybe since you have to have that many sources and they're supposed to be non-biased you could do "practical applications of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to modern every day life." Or "the making of Buffy the Vampire Slayer"?

 

[mayfever]

I have to agree with Zobo here, for a broader approach you would need more sources. Just out of interest, have you researched any literature yet? Is your library well-stocked for popular culture, or will you have to rely mostly on internet sources? (BTW, I really recommend you take a look at Slayage, the online magazine for Buffy Studies. The articles are really well-researched, partly written by notable scholars and, of course, incredibly interesting)

If you insist with the broader approach, why not write the paper on academic snobbery and try to find out why popular culture is so much frowned upon as an academic research subject, using BtVS as an example? (Of course, if you live in America, the high brow/low brow distinction is not as prominent as in Europe and esp Germany - you would not believe what I had to listen to when I decided to write a paper on Harry Potter). I followed a similar line in one of the chapters of my dissertation because I included a novel by a popular woman author. One of the reasons I gave was that a large part of our Western attitude to art is based on Aristotle's poetics "On Tragedy"; the second part, "On Comedy", was of course lost thousands of years ago, which would explain why we tend to not take art seriously if it makes us laugh. (Of course, it's again not as bad in the States as it is over here, but I think it's still valid - just think about how often a comedy won an Oscar for Best Picture!)

Anyway, I'm really interested in seeing what you come up with. Please let us know what you decide on!!

 

[StarSlayer]

There are a ton of academic articles out there on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." You could do a Google Scholar search to start, but I would also check out the library or Amazon.com for books that contain articles and discuss the show more in detail and on an academic level. There's a book called "Why Buffy Matters," which contains essays on various topics concerning the show. I would check that book out because I think it could be helpful. 🙂

Maybe instead of "Why people watch the show," since it's a very general topic, you could discuss the fandom. There's articles on the online communities, which could be a good starting point. Or maybe you can discuss how BtVS became a cult classic and changed television by having such a strong, independent woman as the main character. I'm sure there's articles on that as well. I'm so jealous you get the write a college paper on BtVS! If I was a Buffy fan when I was in college, I definitely would have written one! Good luck!!! 😀

 

[Blondie Bear]

There's quite a bit of scholarly work on Buffy--possibly more than any other pop culture phenomenon. I know we had a thread listing books on Buffy around here somewhere. *checks under the rug* If you can't find that thread, let me know and I can at least give you a list of the ones I own.

 

[mayfever]

Oh, and even my uni library stocks a few of them (for a complete list, just do a quick search here, the site is in German but should be pretty self-explanatory). If you need anything, I could scan stuff for you.