Buffy Scholar/Critic | Watcher Junior Board Member

Tanya Cochran is a doctoral candidate in Rhetoric and Composition at Georgia State University. Her interests include BtVS and religion, the rhetoric of scholar-fandom, and using BtVS to teach first-year college writing. Though her first love is cultural studies, her immediate work focuses on composition studies, writing centers, and the intersection of faith and learning. In August 2005, she will join the faculty at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska, where she will direct the writing center, teach first-year writing, and begin her—of course!—BtVS-related dissertation. Her dream is to publish her own BtVS book.

Cochran, Tanya. "Borrowing Her Body, Wearing Her Ways:  The Rhetoric of Faith as Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s ‘This Year’s Girl’ and ‘Who Are You?’” Paper delivered at the PCA/ACA Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX, April 2004.

___. “Complicating the Open Closet: Vito Russo and the Visual Rhetoric of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Sapphic Lovers.” Paper given at the Northeastern Modern Language Association Annual Conference, Boston, MA, March 2005.

___. “Constructing the Television Canon, or In Defense of Firefly,” with Wendy Campbell. Workshop given at the PCA/ACA Annual Conference, San Diego, CA, March 2005.

___. “Dancing to an Unnamed Tune:  Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Christological Metaphor and the Monomyth,” Paper proposed for the Conference on Christianity and Literature, Southeast Region, Montreat, NC, April 2004.

___. “‘New Moon Rising’ . . . or Falling?:  The Fate of Sapphic Love on Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Paper given at the PCAS/ACAS Annual Conference, Nashville, TN, October 2000.

 ___. “‘New Moon Rising’ . . . or Falling?: The Fate of Sapphic Love on Buffy the Vampire Slayer-—The Sequel.” Paper given at the PCA/ACA Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA, April 2003.

___. “Raising the Stake:  Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Death of Feminism,” Paper given at the PCA/ACA Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, April 2001.

___. “Saved by the Blood:  Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Chronicles of Narnia, and the Rhetoric of Christian Criticism,” Paper given at the PCAS/ACAS Annual Conference, Jacksonville, FL, October 2003.

___. “Slaying Pupils, Siring Students:  Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the Composition Classroom,” Paper proposed for the Interdisciplinary Conference for Teachers of Undergraduates (Gordon College), Barnesville, GA, March 2004.

 ___. “Saving Angel: A Case Study of the Evangelistic Rhetoric of Fans,” Paper given at the PCAS/ACAS, New Orleans, LA, September 2004.

___. “Your Own Personal Savior . . . I Mean, Slayer:  Buffy and Religion, Buffy as Religion,” Paper proposed for the Slayage Conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Nashville, TN, May 2004. 

___. “Whedonism, or How Quickly Fan Rhetoric Gets Religious,” Paper given at the New Voices Graduate Conference on Language, Literature, and Discourse Studies, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, September 2004.