NPR had a longish story on All Things Considered yesterday about the coming end (sniff) of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The story was about how academics have gotten into the act:
Buffy enjoys a special following among academics, some of whom have staked a claim in what they call "Buffy Studies." NPR's Neda Ulaby reports there are serious academic studies on the characters and themes in the series -- titles like "Buffy the Vampire Disciplinarian: Institutional Excess and the New Economy of Power."Now the series is down to its final two episodes (the final episode airs May 20), and the fate of "Buffy Studies" is up in the air. David Lavery, helping to organize the second Buffy Studies Conference in Nashville, Tenn., in 2004, says the end of the series will actually be just the beginning of the debate. "We are at the point where we're developing textual studies of Buffy and debates about what constitutes the actual text of Buffy," he tells Ulaby.