BUFFY HEREAFTER: From the Whedonverse to the Whedonesque:
An Interdisciplinary Conference on the Work of Joss Whedon and its Aftereffects.
17-19 October 2007
Istanbul, TURKEY
Keynote Address: David Lavery: Keeping the Faith: Joss Whedon's "Religion in
Narrative" and Contemporary Television
XANDER: Whoa, Giles has a TV. Everybody, Giles has a TV. He's shallow like us.
OZ: I got to admit, I am a little disappointed.
WILLOW: Well maybe it doesn’t work. Like a piece of art.
Xander turns the TV on. Willow is open mouthed with shock.
GILES: Public television. Come on everyone we have vital work to do. Watching
television is not going to help us right now.
TV: - near the UC Sunnydale campus. Officials attribute the unusual occurrence
to weakening of the supporting topsoil nearby. City work crews denied any
tunneling has been done in the area.
GILES: Tunneling. Spike. Xander, find Buffy and meet us there.
The Harsh Light of Day (4003)
When all potential slayers became actual slayers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
(BtVS) was over. The question remains if, by its demise, BtVS turned all
television series into potential Buffys. Is there a ‘before and after’ to
television series, with BtVS occupying the point of transition? What are
Buffy’s successors? What are Buffy’s predecessors? Have television series
become Whedonesque? Is ‘quality television’ synonymous with Whedonesque?
What is Whedonesque?
In hope of finding possible answers to such questions, papers are solicited
on any aspect of the television series created by Joss Whedon, namely, Buffy
the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly. This is an interdisciplinary
conference therefore, possible disciplines include but are not limited to:
film studies, TV studies, media studies, cultural studies, feminist studies,
masculinity studies, lesbian and gay studies, queer studies, transgender
studies, literature, music, philosophy, sociology, history, architecture.
Proposals are invited for 20-minute presentations. Panel proposals for up to
three speakers are also welcomed. Please send abstracts of no more than 350
words to:
Tuna Erdem, [log in to unmask]
Deadline for abstracts: 15th of June
For further details the conference web site is at: www.independentscholars.org
Possible Streams or Food For Thought:
A) Defining the Whedonesque: “Is that why time went David Lynch on me”
What are the characteristics that define the style of Whedon? What are the
narrational preferences and narrative strategies that Whedon repeatedly
employs?
Is Whedon an author? Is he the type of postmodern author called “author as fan”?
Are the creators of TV series, the new authors?
- Comparisons between Whedon series and its contemporaries in ‘quality
television’ like Six Feet Under, Veronica Mars, Nip/Tuck, Smallville,
Carnivale, Lost etc.
- Twin Peaks as the predecessor of the Whedonverse.
- Whedonesque construction of time: Whedon’s use of flashbacks and
flashforwards.
- Character arcs with sharp intertextual twists: Cordelia as popular
cheerleader- ascended being- mother of all evil or Wesley as repressed
gentleman- rouge demon hunter- loner anti-hero etc.
- Stock actors and crossovers: Jasmine/ Zoe, Caleb/ Malcolm etc.
B) Psychoanalytic Reading: “Freud would've said the exact same thing. Except
he might not have done that little dance.”
Is it possible to read Whedon’s texts from Freudian, Lacanian, Jungian or
Kleinian perspectives? Is the supernatural really the unconscious? Does
Buffy have parental problems? Does the Whedonverse have an unconscious? Is
psychoanalytic insight an aspect of the Whedonesque?
- Metaphors: Demons as the metaphors for the unconscious, possession as the
metaphor of the return of the repressed etc. Blood sucking as metaphors of
introjection etc.
- Split characters and their relation to the splitting of the ego:
Angel/Angelus, Rupert/Ripper etc.
- Bad object choice: demon lovers and doomed relationships
- The mother and son Oedipal dynamic: Spike and his mother, Principal Wood
and his mother.
- The death drive and death as the slayers gift.
- Depression, melancholia and Angel
- Giles as the Name of the Father
- Lacan’s Imaginary: dream sequences, prophetic dreams, Cordelia’s visions.
- Le Real: The Hellmouth, Apocalypse, Reavers
- Jungian archetypes in the Whedonverse.
C) Perverse Sexuality: “He is evil but you should see him naked”
If quality television can be defined by its adult content, and if adult
content equals sex then how adult is the Whedonverse? How are alternative
sexualities represented? Does the subtext rapidly become the text in the
Whedonverse? How does the Whedonverse compare to other quality television
universes in terms of representing sexuality?
- Textual lesbians: Willow, Tara, Kennedy
- Subtextual gay couples: Angel and Wesley, Angel and Xander, Spike and
Xander, Spike and Angel
- Sexual fantasies: “Mind screens” of fantasizing characters.
- Textual sadomasochist couples: Spike and Buffy, Spike and Drusilla, Xander
and Anya, Vampire Willow and Angel, Oz and Veruca, Wesley and Justine, Riley
and Vampires, Riley and Faith, Xander and Faith
- Subtextual Sadomasochism: Bondage, fetish costumes, spanking references.
- Demon loving as a form of bestiality and vampire loving as a form of
necrophilia.
D) Satellite worlds: “Action figures, fully deployed”
If Whedon is an “author as fan” has his fans also become authors? How much
does fandom contribute to the Whedonverse and the creation of the
Whedonesque? If quality television is the new cinema, what happens when
series become films or vice versa?
- Buffy Graphic novels and the Eighth season of BtVS
- Buffy Computer Games and characters as avatars of fans
- Fan Fiction and subtexts that rapidly become texts
- Serenity and the last episode as a film
- Whedonesque and Buffy studies
OZ: It was stupid to think that you'd just be... waiting.
WILLOW: I was waiting. I feel like some part of me will always be waiting
for you. Like if I'm old and blue-haired, and I turn a corner in Istanbul
and there you are, I won't be surprised. Because... you're with me, you know?
OZ: I know. (Pause) But now is not that time, I guess.
New Moon Rising (BtVS, Season 4, Episode 19)
Now it is that time. Don’t wait any longer, turn a corner in Istanbul and
let us meet at the Buffy Hereafter: From the Whedonverse to the Whedonesque:
An Interdisciplinary Conference on the work of Joss Whedon and its
Aftereffects, at Istanbul.
Serazer Pekerman
University of St Andrews
Film Studies
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Salvatore Scifo
Communications,
MeCCSA Postgraduate Network
Communication and Media Research Institute
School of Media, Arts & Design
University of Westminster
Watford Road, Northwick Park
Harrow
HA1 3TP
MeCCSA Postgraduate Network
http://www.meccsa.org.uk/pgn/
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