Discovering Buffy
Note to scholars: anyone wishing to use the responses gathered here (after the airing of the final episode in the US in May and June of 2003) in order to investigate BtVS fandom has the permission of the editors of Slayage to do so. Please be sure to credit Slayage as your source (the URL should be cited as http://www.slayage.tv/discoveringbuffy/).
The editors of Slayage would like to hear your account of how you discovered BtVS. We are convinced that a collection of such accounts will have real ethnographic value.
In less than 200 words offer us a brief but specific account in first person of how and when you started watching Buffy. Begin by telling us who you are and what you do. Send your response in an e-mail to discoveringbuffy@slayage.tv
Here is an example which you may use as a model if you like.
Follow the links above to see those unedited accounts submitted and posted so far (arranged in alphabetical order by the authors' last name).
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I am a professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University where I teach courses on literature, film, and popular culture and have edited or co-edited books on Twin Peaks, X-Files, and The Sopranos. On October 5th, 1999, I was teaching a course on Film History at MTSU. One of my students asked before class started if I would be watching the season premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that evening. I responded with disdain. I had hated the movie and was barely cognizant of the TV show, although I had just noticed with surprise that my new copy of Entertainment Weekly contained "The Ultimate Buffy Viewer's Guide" as though it were worthy of careful attention. Two other students in the class chimed in, insisting that it would be a show I would love. I agreed to check it out and that evening watched "The Freshman." I was instantly hooked (even though, in retrospect, it was not a strong episode). Since one of my Film History students (Chris Peltier) had almost all of the first three seasons on tape, I caught up quickly. Soon thereafter I approached Rhonda Wilcox, who had already published a superb essay on Buffy, about doing a book together. The rest is history. --David Lavery |
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Dr. David Lavery
English Department, MTSU
Murfreesboro, TN 37132
615-898-5648; Fax: 615-898-5098
Homepage: http://www.mtsu.edu/~dlavery/
Co-Editor of SLAYAGE: http://slayage.tv
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