I don't think we really need turn to either the Almighty or Alan Sokol to 
figure this out -- though perhaps some might find solace in doing so.

I suspect that those who use the term "Buffy Studies" do so with an awful 
lot of self-conscious irony that sends up -- as much it emulates -- other 
more readily sanctioned auteurist or text-centered pursuits as, I dunno, 
say, Hitchcock studies.  So maybe they're already a bit on your side.  Just 
in case they're not, I imagine it's a bit of an umbrella term that in 
shorthand covers the convergence of a variety of issues -- genre, youth 
cultures, gender, etc.

Clearly, though, there's an underlying problem.  We ought to better 
discipline the boundaries of the field -- lest the Almighty notice that 
UNDERGRADUATES are beginning to care enough about writing to develop their 
own journal.  I mean, they're not even credentialed, or anything.  Next 
thing we know, a group of renegade youth will develop a journal of Sokol 
Studies.

Oh, my!

;-)

mk


At 03:21 PM 5/7/2005, you wrote:
>Steven P. Hill writes:
>
>>What in the name of the Almighty is "Buffy Studies"?  Assuming  that the 
>>"Buffy" posting (attached below) is not a belated April Fool's joke, it 
>>must be SOME sub-discipline  within popular culture, which an old-timer 
>>like yours truly has never heard of...
>
>Oh, thank goodness!  Your posting has gone some way to lifting me out of 
>the depression caused by Thursday's general election result.  I thought 
>that this list had become so leftie, feminist and politically correct that 
>anyone who dared to ask such a question - if only rhetorically - would run 
>the risk of being escorted to a cellar and introduced to The Gimp (or 
>escorted up a hill and introduced to The Wicker Man - you get the idea).
>
>If your question is anything other than rhetorical I'm afraid I can't 
>provide much of an answer (well, not much of a printable one, anyway), but 
>in relation to sub-disciplines within popular culture, Alan Sokal & Jean 
>Bricmont, 'Intellectual Impostures' (London, Profile Books, 2003), might 
>be worth a look.  The opening chapters of Barry Salt, 'Film Style & 
>Technology: History and Analysis' (2nd ed., London, Starword, 1992), most 
>certainly are.
>
>Best wishes
>Leo
>
>Leo Enticknap
>Curator, Northern Region Film & Television Archive
>Middlesbrough, UK
>www.nrfta.org.uk
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