“FEAR AND TREMBLING IN SUNNYDALE”

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

Just picked up an entertaining volume, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy, which carries the subtitle mentioned above. I mean, honestly, how can anyone pass up an essay volume that includes such papers as “Also Sprach Faith: The Problem of the Happy Rogue Vampire Slayer,” “Feminism and the Ethics of Violence: Why Buffy Kicks Úš,” “‘My God, It’s Like a Greek Tragedy’: Willow Rosenberg and Human Irrationality,” “High School is Hëll: Metaphor Made Literal,” and my personal favorite, “A Kantian Analysis of Moral Judgment in Buffy th Vampire Slayer.”

Edited by James B. South, it is to my mind required reading. Taking my time, I will have finished it a week from Friday. You all have that much time to find it, buy it and read it. There WILL be a quiz.

PAD

17 comments on ““FEAR AND TREMBLING IN SUNNYDALE””

  1. I picked it up earlier in the week, but only just started it today. There’s a similar one called “Simpsons and Philosophy,” which I thought was an excellent book. When one really thinks about it, there are a lot of philosophical questions involving “Buffy” begging to be asked and probed, and this looks like a good book to do so.

  2. Haven’t read either the Buffy or Simpsons books yet, but there’s another published by the same group called “The Matrix and Philosophy.”

    Great book. Lots of interesting essays about the religions and philosophic viewpoints alluded to in the film.

  4. From a purely selfish POV, I’m happy to see stuff like this published, having slaved many years in academia writing popular culture papers on stuff like comics and TV shows.

  5. If you like the Buffy book, I’d also recommend the Simpsons one. There’s also a Seinfeld and Philosphy book, which I believe is part of the same series, but I haven’t seen that one on the shelves in awhile.

  7. Hey John-

    Thanks for that link to the “All Things Philosophical on BtVS and AtS” I just wasted an hour of my life there and look forward to wasting some more there later.

  8. There is also a neat little volume called “Reading the Vampire Slayer,” which came out the summer between Season 5 and 6. It also is a series of essays on vartious topics, almost all of which I found intriguing.

  9. PAD, what do you think the general consensus would be if someone applied the same effort to your body of work. Do you get the feeling that the writer would write up three pages about your use of Rick Jones in the Hulk as a surrogate for yourself, analyzing every little thing you had Rick do and trying to assign real-world meaning to it? And your response to such analyses, such as Rick’s killing of the leader of Trans-Sabal was that you just wanted to put Rick through hëll for a while…

  10. Just checked out the Esential Scoobies website on ATPOBAA, and I have a question. Well actually two. Jonathan and Warren are listed, but why is Andrew missing? And two, if Buffy and her friends are called the Scoobies, is Oz or Dawn Scrappy Doo?

  11. Anyone interested in this kind of approach to popular culture– you know, intellectual wáņkërš with lots of time on their hands–would do well to check out the columns that Thomas Hibbs, a philosohpy professor at BC, has been writing on “Buffy” for several years for The National Review. (Hibbs’ essay “Buffy Noir” is included in the volume PAD mentioned, I think) Here’s a link to one of them, from last year’s season:

    http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-hibbs052402.asp

    Those who tend to prefer that thought and fun not coincide need not apply. 🙂

  13. the book is actually pretty well written, some is garbage, but worth reading if you are a big fan of the show.

  14. Speaking of Books, apparently a certain movie novelization has started turning up in the stores by a certain Writer of Stuff. Ain’t It Cool News has a “review” of the book (although it’s really more of a review of the plot). http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=15115

    And as a side note, since we are about to have the LepreCon 29 convention here in Phoenix, for those of you who remembers Peter’s comments on LepreCon 28 last year at which he was our Author Guest of Honor, here’s a link to some pics from the body painting demo that Peter commented on

    http://www.futureclassx.com/bodypaint/tawnyagentleman/talon/lepreCon28.htm

    Lee

  15. And two, if Buffy and her friends are called the Scoobies, is Oz or Dawn Scrappy Doo?

    When they introduced a possible new gang for Dawn in the first episode of this season, everybody seems to have started thinking of them as the Scrappies. (They haven’t appeared since, unfortunately.)

  16. Good to see Buffy is inspiring some good old fashioned obsessive-compulsive behavior of the kind that Star Trek used to.

  17. I’d still like to see “The Naked Hulk Alongside Came: Peter David’s Hulk and Philosophy.”

    Now there’s a book I’d read. Hëll, there’s a book I’d *write.*

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