Of Slayages and Squirrels

I apologize for missing "Walter White Wednesday" this week, but it was unavoidable. Ensley and I had just returned from the Sixth Biennial Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses and were dealing with jet-lag. I'm pretty sure that if I'd tried to post on Wednesday, the result would have looked like this:

"Welcome to Walueoriep jsdoibfjkl;adk fl;sdkflzzzzzzz."

And really - who wants that?  We did have a successful book signing at Beers Books in Sacramento, due in large part to supportive Slayage attendees who came out to celebrate with us (and maybe to score a little of the blue). The picture at the top of the post is from the signing - look at that enticing bowl of candy!

Many others will post about Slayage - and there will be an official report on the various papers, presentations and roundtables put out by official Whedon Studies Association ("WSA") reporters soon - so I'm taking a different tack here. Rather than attempting to summarize the various papers I was able to hear (I missed a fair number, since three sessions run concurrently and I have yet to master the use of time-traveling technology), let me explain why the WSA matters.

There are any number of professional organizations - groups devoted to particular philosophers, authors, theorists, professions, and so on. The WSA is devoted to the academic study of Joss Whedon, a prospect that has caused more than one media professional to say, "Huh-what?" I'm not here to re-plow that ground - Whedon's work often shows depth and nuance that an academic would eagerly pounce on, and the fact that humor is so tightly interwoven just makes the exploration that much - well, cooler. We're fans of the work (we spend too much time here to hate the stuff, although I went to a fantastic session defending "hated characters" at this latest gathering), which means we quote, and quip, and wear clever T-shirts. But at the core, Slayage is about scholarship. How does Dollhouse tackle themes of consent and privilege? How can theories of leadership and military tactics be applied to The Avengers? How does the law firm of Wolfram & Hart reflect actual legal principles of a "vigorous defense"? Oh, we do go on.

But even that's not the real point of this.

Perhaps you've noticed:  higher education is a mess right now. Questions of student loans, bloated administrative costs, low morale, frozen pay, a dangerously-expanding bubble of adjunct workloads, and the application of so-called "business models" to education dominate the headlines.  In short, it's not a good time to ask for funding to go to a conference devoted to a man best known for creating a show with the silly-sounding title Buffy the Vampire Slayer, no matter how elevated the work and discussion might be. But go we do, often on our own dime. And that matters.

Yes, we make valuable contacts. Publishing contacts, professional contacts, and personal contacts - we make 'em all at Slayage. We present our work - often nervously; these people are smart! - and we refine it as a result of questions and comments we receive. In such ways, scholarship - which ought to matter as much as the football field house - advances, bringing us along with it. We see the world a hair differently. We understand each other a touch better. We aren't so scared of someone who doesn't look exactly like us.

We become better.

 And that's what it's about. Now, the WSA won't work that way for everyone; that's why there are all those other societies. But for me, the WSA provides a unique opportunity to learn. Many teacher-types don't want to do that - they aren't secure enough to admit there are things they don't know about, so they remain tightly in their own box of expertise. Whedonians not only cheerfully admit that they don't know things; they revel in the idea that there's so much more out there to learn and they expect you to share. I've attended sessions in areas that are so far afield from my own areas of expertise that it would make my knees quake to consider going to a presentation in those areas if I didn't have the common thread of Whedon to wrap tightly around me. Seriously - I know very little about musicology or the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and I attended - and enjoyed - sessions centering on both.

The "bottom line" folks would ask - "Well, how are you going to use that in class?"

My answer:  I don't know. Yet. But I know I'm a better instructor for going outside what I already know.

And Slayage is also so much fun! Spending time with intelligent, lively people who are reveling in their passions usually is. Add to that the campus squirrels, who were entirely too tame, and you have the makings of a meme. So we did.  (Tumblr. The. Best.)

Passion.  Maybe Angel said it best:  "Passion is the source of our finest moments; the joy of love, the clarity of hatred, and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank . . . without passion, we'd be truly dead."

So there's Slayage and during that time, we see each other.  We squeal, and we hug tightly, and we cement that community, knowing that it needs to carry us through another Slay-age (which has been determined to be four days followed by two years). And carry us it does. Think of it this way - since I started attending with the second Slayage in 2006, I've published my first book; gotten involved in fan communities that use Whedon's words as inspiration to raise awareness and cashy money for good causes (I even helped design a T-shirt to help with one I felt especially strongly about); met and married my husband; co-wrote a book with him; and built relationships with people that I may not see all that often, but consider family nevertheless.

I can't put a dollar amount on it, but I know it's worth something better than cash.

Slayage 5

It's no secret that Joss Whedon got me into the popular culture analysis game.  I've written and presented on his work for six years now and he keeps putting out things that need to get looked at (the Angel & Faith comics have some storylines that deserve examination, for instance, along with a little film called The Avengers that may have slipped by you this summer), so I imagine I'll keep writing about his work.

Every two years since 2004, scholars have gathered (no one seems to know what the proper collective noun is for such a group; I've suggested a "dissertation of scholars."  We'll see if it catches on.) for a conference devoted to Whedon and his works.  While Whedon is often the subject of papers and full panels at popular culture conferences, the Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses is devoted exclusively to him.  Papers are presented that look at his works from a nearly bewildering variety of perspectives - a copy of the program can be found here - and I always leave the conference fired up and brimming over with (hopefully good) ideas for future projects.

In the past, I've tried to recap the conference, which is an exhausting endeavor.  Seriously, this conference is gogogo for three straight days, plus one evening beforehand.  On top of which, we (my husband is also a Whedonian) had travel "adventures" both outbound and returning, so it took longer than usual to get our breath back - plus there was jet lag from journeying from North Carolina to Vancouver and back.  Fortunately, I don't need to feel bad about not recapping the conference presentations, because several others are storming the summarizing ramparts.  Check out the following and I'm sure there are more:

• Nik at Night is the wonderful blog run by Nikki Stafford of Toronto's ECW Press.  She is in the process of taking her notes and turning them into full-scale write ups for each day that are both informative and chatty.  She also has pictures, which is doubly cool.  And she's the editor for the Wanna Cook? project, so she's triply cool.
• David Kociemba and Kristen Romanelli maintain the blog for Watcher Junior which is the undergraduate journal for Whedon studies.  They are taking turns posting recaps of the conference - both the blog and the journal itself are well worth reading.
• The beyond charming witnessaria (go back and watch "Once More with Feeling" to get the name) has also blogged about the conference.  
• If you want to see the live tweets that came out of the conference, go to your Twitter account and look for #slayage5.  This hashtag is still active, so you'll need to look back a bit.  Multiple folks were tweeting throughout the panels, which was (I think) a first for Slayage.  At one point, the #slayage5 hashtag was trending worldwide!  Academics talk a lot, be that on Twitter or through any other channel!
• Also, the Slayage journal will have official write ups from three reporters soon.  Those are always solid and complete, so you'll want to check that out.

It's a great time and it's not just for academics, so we'll see you in a Slay-age (three days followed by two years) for the next one!  

Walter White Wednesday 21

The premiere of the first half of Season 5 is only a few days away and you can bet that next week's "Walter White Wednesday" will focus on the first episode, which AMC has revealed is titled "Live Free or Die."  Wonder what we should make of that title?  At the end of Season 4 Walt seemed to think he had "won," but I'm not at all sure about that.  Drug cartels, much like nature, abhor a vacuum, and with the end of Gus and Hector, there's a distinct blank space in the cartel structure.  Walt wants money, power, and prestige and he's shown a willingness to kill to get what he wants.

Then again, Gilligan has taught me to not assume much of anything in this show.  He's a twisty as they come.  Too curious to wait?  Then check out this "what you might expect in Season 5" video from AMC.

In the meantime, I'm up in Vancouver enjoying the Fifth Biennial Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses. New material for this conference includes presentations on The Cabin in the Woods, Avengers, and the comic Sugarshock.  I'm scheduled for Friday and I'll be talking about space Westerns and how Firefly owes a "thank you" to Watanabe's anime Cowboy Bebop. So much has been written about Whedon's works - it's by far the most popular television series to get the academic treatment - but Whedon's comic work is not discussed as much as his TV/film work, so I'm especially looking forward to hearing more about his run on X-Men (Kitty Pryde was a model for Buffy Summers, BTW) and the continuation of Buffy in comic form.  In the past, I've blogged about the conference as it was going on, but this time, I've decided to save up the commentary for afterward and spend more time with actual live people.  But I can tell you this much.

There are going to be puppets.  And a sing-along.  And probably a sing-along with puppets.

Oh, I know - this makes it sound like we're not Serious Scholars, but trust me.  These people are scary-super-smart and the Slayage conference is one time in two years where puppets and enthusiasm don't need to be accompanied by an apology.  So I'm going to go blow off some steam with like-minded individuals and come back refreshed and recharged.

Onward!