Description
Book SynopsisHow can Buffy’s religious symbolism be squared with creator Joss Whedon’s professed atheism? Is Buffy truly a Kierkegaardian knight of faith? Do Faith’s corruption and return to the good life demonstrate Platonic eudaimonism? Or do they illustrate the flaws in Nietzsche’s superman concept? What does the show’s treatment of vampires, demons, and other entities say about ethical attitudes toward nonhumans? These are some of the questions asked and answered in this lively collection of essays that link classical philosophy to the long-running series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy’s status as the leading vehicle for exploring the evil underlying everyday life has made it ripe for the kind of witty, penetrating philosophical analysis this book delivers -- fully disintering the intellectual issues that underlie this cult favorite.
Table of ContentsPart 1: The burden of Slayerness: Buffy, Faith, and Feminism 1. Faith and Plato: "You're Nothing! Disgusting, Murderous Bitch!" 2. Also Sprach Faith: The Problem of the Happy Rogue Vampire Slayer 3. Buffy and Feminist Ethics 4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Feminist Noir 5. Feminism and the Ethics of Violence: Why Buffy Kicks Ass Part 2: Don't speak Latin In front of the books. Knowledge, Rationality, & Science in the Buffyverse 6. Balderdash and Chicanery: Science and Beyond in Buffy the Vampire Slayer 7. Pluralism, Pragmatism, and Pals: The Slayer Subverts the Science Wars 8. Between Heaven and Hells: Multidimensional Cosmology in Kant and Buffy the Vampire Slayer 9. Buffy Goes to College, Adam Murders to Dissect: Education and Knowledge in a Postmodern World 10. "My God, it's Like a Greek Tragedy": Willow Rosenberg and Human Irrationality Part 3: Sacred duty, yadda, yadda, yadda: Buffy and Ethics 11. Should We Do What Buffy Would Do? 12. Passion and Action: In and Out of Control 13. Buffy in the Buff: A Slayer's Solution to Aristotle's Love Paradox 14. A Kantian Analysis of Moral Judgement in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Part 4: That's the kind of woolly-headed thinking that leads to being eaten: Religion and Politics in the Buffyverse 15. Brown Skirts: Fascism, Christianity, and the Eternal Demon 16. Prophecy Girl and the Powers That Be: The Philosophy of Religion in the Buffyverse 17: Justifying the Means: Punishment in the Buffyverse 18. No Big Win: Themes of Sacrifice, Salvation, and Redemption 19. Old Familiar Vampires: Radicalism and Liberalism in the Politics of the Buffyverse Part 5: You're all slaves to the television: Watching Buffy 20. Morality on Television: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer 21. High School Is Hell: Metaphor Made Literal 22. Feeling for Buffy: The Girl Next Door Open Court Publishing Company
