Kevin K. Durand

Buffy Meets the Academy is a must-read for both fans of the show and academics who enjoy analyzing pop culture. In the introduction, editor Kevin K. Durand argues that for scholarship on pop culture to be taken seriously, the best approach to analysis is Critical Engagement (Durand defines: “A scholar critically engages a text when she brings her considerable training to the text and asks of the text what it is arguing. The approach is not a matter of discerning ways in which the text may be of instrumental use in some other venue, but rather of asking what intrinsic value may be found.”). The collection of articles in Buffy Meets the Academy is mostly successful in this project. The scholarship is organized into four distinct sections: Power and the Buffy Canon, Buffy Meets the Classics, Buffy, the Scoobies and Beyond, and Buffy and the Classroom. Some of the more interesting, well researched, and/or persuasive articles in the bunch include David Fritt’s Buffy’s Seven Season Initiation, Durand’s It’s All About Power, Elizabeth Bridge’s Grimm Realities: Buffy and the Use of Folklore, and Melanie Wilson’s She Believes in Me: Angel, Spike, and Redemption. The twenty articles presented in Buffy Meets the Academy focus on the television series (and sometimes the comics and Angel as well) from many different angles, allowing for a rich and unique discussion of the show.… (plus d'informations)