Description
Book Synopsis The films, television shows, and graphic novel series that comprise the Whedonverse continually show that there is a high price to be paid for love, rebellion, heroism, anger, death, betrayal, friendship, and saving the world. This collection of essays reveals the ways in which the Whedonverse treats the trauma of ordinary life with similar gravitas as trauma created by the supernatural, illustrating how memories are lost, transformed, utilized, celebrated, revered, questioned, feared, and rebuffed within the storyworlds created by Joss Whedon and his collaborators.
Through a variety of approaches and examinations, the essays in this book seek to understand how the themes of trauma, memory, and identity enrich one another in the Whedonverse and beyond. As the authors present different arguments and focus on various texts, the essays work to build a mosaic of the trauma found in beloved works like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Dollhouse, and more. The book concl
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Welcome to the Hellmouth: Trauma and Memory in the Whedonverse
Katherine A. Troyer
"That has nothing to do with today": The Whedonverse and the Dangers of Rewriting Historical Memory
Erin Giannini
Unwanted Memories: When Heroines Choose Trauma Over Amnesia
Valerie Estelle Frankel
Restless Death: Memory and Transmedial Bodies in the Buffyverse
Juliette C. Kitchens
Dismembering (the) Buffybot
Madeline Muntersbjorn
"Better": Trauma, Romantic Attachment, and the Victor/Sierra Arc in Dollhouse
Renee St. Louis
"Now you don't have to use this color anymore": Art Therapy in Dollhouse and Orphan Black
Janet Brennan Croft
Such Pretty Things: Madness in the Whedonverse
Catherine Pugh
Conclusion: "We had our own hellmouth": The Allegations Against Joss Whedon
Alyson R. Buckman
About the Contributors
Index
