Designed by writer Joss Whedon as a multilevel story with most of its meanings deeply buried in heaps of heavy irony, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has replaced the X-Files as the show that explains to Americans the nature of the powerful forces of evil continually threatening to surge into a world of everyday decency. This collection features 23 essays by young professional philosophers that examine crucial ethical and metaphysical aspects of the Buffyverse (the world of Buffy). In the tradition of the classic horror films, Buffy the Vampire Slayer addresses ethical issues that have long fascinated audiences. This book finds the ethical and metaphysical lessons from a pop-culture phenomenon. Using the insights of such philosophers as Plato, Aristotle, Nietzche and Kant, the authors provide and entertaining introduction to the field. The book also contains a programme episode guide, a biography of contributors and an index.
Part 1: The burden of Slayerness: Buffy, Faith, and Feminism 1. Faith and Plato: You're Nothing! Disgusting, Murderous Bitch! 2. Also Sprach Faith: The Problem of the Happy Rogue Vampire Slayer 3. Buffy and Feminist Ethics 4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Feminist Noir 5. Feminism and the Ethics of Violence: Why Buffy Kicks Ass Part 2: Don't speak Latin In front of the books. Knowledge, Rationality, & Science in the Buffyverse 6. Balderdash and Chicanery: Science and Beyond in Buffy the Vampire Slayer 7. Pluralism, Pragmatism, and Pals: The Slayer Subverts the Science Wars 8. Between Heaven and Hells: Multidimensional Cosmology in Kant and Buffy the Vampire Slayer 9. Buffy Goes to College, Adam Murders to Dissect: Education and Knowledge in a Postmodern World 10. My God, it's Like a Greek Tragedy : Willow Rosenberg and Human Irrationality Part 3: Sacred duty, yadda, yadda, yadda: Buffy and Ethics 11. Should We Do What Buffy Would Do? 12. Passion and Action: In and Out of Control 13. Buffy in the Buff: A Slayer's Solution to Aristotle's Love Paradox 14. A Kantian Analysis of Moral Judgement in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Part 4: That's the kind of woolly-headed thinking that leads to being eaten: Religion and Politics in the Buffyverse 15. Brown Skirts: Fascism, Christianity, and the Eternal Demon 16. Prophecy Girl and the Powers That Be: The Philosophy of Religion in the Buffyverse 17: Justifying the Means: Punishment in the Buffyverse 18. No Big Win: Themes of Sacrifice, Salvation, and Redemption 19. Old Familiar Vampires: Radicalism and Liberalism in the Politics of the Buffyverse Part 5: You're all slaves to the television: Watching Buffy 20. Morality on Television: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer 21. High School Is Hell: Metaphor Made Literal 22. Feeling for Buffy: The Girl Next Door Open Court Publishing Company
