Buffy Scholars Convene

[|william|]

About 325 scholars and others gathered in Nashville, Tenn., last week for an academic conference examining the cult TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff series, Angel, the Associated Press reported. "Buffyologists" from as far away as Singapore presented 190 papers on topics ranging from "Slayer slang" to "postmodern reflections on the culture of consumption" to "Buffy and the new American Buddhism," the AP reported.

There was even a self-conscious talk by David Lavery, an English professor at Middle Tennessee State University, on Buffy studies "as an academic cult."

Lavery and Rhonda Wilcox, a professor at Gordon College in Georgia, co-hosted the conference and are known as the "father and mother" of Buffy studies, the AP reported. Wilcox, who wrote her doctoral thesis at Duke University about Charles Dickens, compared the show's depth and texture to his 19th-century serial novels. "I think it's a great work of art," she told the wire service.