Stars of Whedonverses to get intense scrutiny
Posted on Tuesday, April 22, 2008
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People attending Slayage Conference for the Whedonverses 3 will hear some of the “bigs” in Buffy the Vampire Slayer studies. Among them: David Lavery, an American professor and author serving as chairman of the television and film department at Brunel University in London, has written or co-authored 12 books, among them Fighting the Forces: What’s at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Rowman and Littlefield, 2002 ). A new book, Joss Whedon: A Creative Portrait of the Maker of the Whedonverses, is forthcoming later this year.
Jeanine Basinger, professor of film studies, and founder and curator of the Cinema Archives at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., is a star among Hollywood insiders, according to an article in Variety. Those who studied with her include movie-studio heads, producers, actors, writers and directors. There are so many they are often referred to as the “Wesleyan mafia,” Variety says. Of interest to those at the Slayage conference is her tutelage of Buffy creator Joss Whedon. Stacey Abbott, a lecturer in film and television studies at the University of Surrey Roehampton in England, is the editor of Reading Angel: The TV Spin-off with a Soul (I. B. Tauris, 2005 ).
Rhonda Wilcox, English professor at Gordon College in Georgia, wrote Why Buffy Matters: The Art of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I. B. Tauris, 2005 ) and is co-author of Investigating Firefly and Serenity: Science Fiction on the Frontier, available in August.
Nikki Stafford is the author of Bite Me: The Unofficial Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Ecw Press, several editions ). Matthew Pateman, a lecturer in media, culture and society at the University of Hull, England, is the author of The Aesthetics of Culture in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (McFarland and Co., 2006 ) and Joss Whedon, The Television Series, to be published in 2009. Elizabeth Rambo, associate professor of English at Campbell University in North Carolina, co-edited Buffy Goes Dark: Essays on the Final Two Seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (McFarland and Co., coming in July ).
Books by the speakers and others will be available at the Henderson State University bookstore during the conference.