Performing Popular Culture: Onstage With Buffy The Vampire Slayer (syllabus)
PERFORMING POPULAR CULTURE:
ONSTAGE WITH BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Instructors: Drs. Francesca Coppa (English) and James Peck (Theatre)
Description: The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer filters the monstrous panoramas of gothic melodrama through California youth culture to offer complex popular representations of contemporary life. Patrolling a panoply of social evils encountered by young adults, Buffy raises but does not neatly resolve anxieties of gender, sexuality, and race as they haunt and occasionally terrorize American society. This course will examine BTVS and its many extensions into popular culture (through such media as short stories, websites, comic books, video games, and fanvids) in light of the growing and diverse body of scholarship on the series. Does Buffy stake out progressive (especially feminist and queer) positions? Or does it defang anti-authoritarian ideals, reiterating commodified stereotypes of resistance? Our research will encompass fan communities who debate the outcome of controversial plot strands and create new stories about the characters. In addition to analyzing key episodes, students will imaginatively appropriate the Buffyverse through theatre, fiction writing, and vidding. Students with other interests (graphic art, dance, web-design, etc.) could use those media instead. Fun much? Join us on the Hellmouth, Scoobies.
Critical Lenses: We are going to bring three different and yet interrelated approaches to BTVS; as we watch and discuss key episodes, we will consider:
1) Subject Positions and Ideology
BTVS foregrounds issues of identity; such lived categories as gender, sexuality, race, class, generation and species exert immense influence in the Buffyverse. How does the series represent this range of subjectivities? How does it suggest people occupying different subject positions relate to one another? What sorts of subjectivity and relationship does the series endorse? Condemn? Into what subject positions does the series invite the viewer? How does it do so? Often, BTVS overturns or confounds debilitating cultural stereotypes; at other times, it seems to reiterate them. What might these ideological contradictions mean?
2) Genre and Intertexts
BTVS is self-proclaimed genre fiction; it revels in generic conventions. Obviously, the gothic (especially the vampire story) looms large throughout. In addition, the series partakes of melodrama, soap opera, "quality television," experimental cinema, heroic fiction, graphic novels, science fiction, “chick lit,” romance, and bildingsroman. Sometimes, BTVS replays the conventions of genre; at times, it subverts them. What are BTVS’s intertexts? How does it converse with them?
3) Production and Reception
BTVS is a television show. Not an insignificant detail, this. The semiotics of television will preoccupy us. In this respect, the dramatic structures of the scripts and the visual structures of frame composition and editing will be primary objects of analysis. We will factor in the economic context of mass media storytelling. We will also investigate the reception of the series. BTVS is among the most critically acclaimed series in the history of television. Why? BTVS has fans, (including your instructors!), and its fan base continues to grow three years after the series stopped production. We will look at fandom history and fan cultures, working toward an ethnography of the fans of BTVS. Our materials will encompass fan criticism, interactions between fans and the creators of the series, and fan-created visual art, vids, and fiction. We will approach fan artworks both as creative products and as modes of analysis.
Requirements: * Full--nay, aggressive--participation in all classroom discussion.
* Mandatory multiple viewings of all required episodes.
* Occasional one-to-two page homeworks and in-class freewrites.
* Participation in all artmaking workshops.
* Participation in our online community; we will be watching together and commenting on episodes there.
* One 4 page paper. Due Wednesday, October 5.
* One 8-10 page paper which either close-reads a particular episode or is a sustained, specific, multi-episode treatment of a theme. Due Wednesday, December 14.
* One 10 minute group presentation. Wednesday, November 16.
* One art project in the genre of your choice. Genres might include: vidding, theatre, fanfiction, comic art, dance, visual art, website design or something else approved by the instructors. Due on Performance Day, Friday, December 9.
Required Texts: Topping, The Complete Slayer
Wilcox and Lavery, Fighting The Forces: What’s at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Adams, Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon
Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season 2, Volume 3
Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies, www.slayage.tv
Recommended: Viewing the entire run of the series at least once.
Kaveney, Reading The Vampire Slayer
The Assignments: Complete all readings prior to the first Monday they’re assigned. See all episodes for each week prior to the Monday we begin discussing them. Episodes will be shown weekly on Sunday nights in Library B-02 beginning at 8:00 pm. If you can’t make this time, it is your responsibility to see the required episodes on your own. The DVDs are on reserve in the Library.
~ ~ ~
WELCOME TO THE HELLMOUTH: SEASON 1
Welcome to the Hellmouth: 1 and 2 (1, 2), The Witch (3), Prophecy Girl (12)
Readings, Week 1: (Intro)
David Lavery, “I wrote my thesis on you: Buffy Studies as Academic Cult” Slayage (13-14)
Sue Turnbull, “Not just another Buffy paper: Towards an Aesthetics of Television” Slayage (13-14)
M 8/29 Introduction
T 8/30 Special Tuesday showing of Welcome to the Hellmouth I and II (1,2); Library B - 02, 8:00.
W 8/31
S 9/4 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 3, 12
Readings, Week 2 (Intro)
Rhonda Wilcox, “ ‘Who Died and Made Her the Boss?’: Patterns of Mortality in Buffy” from Fighting the Forces
Patricia Pender, “ ‘I’m Buffy and You’re … History’: The Postmodern Politics of Buffy” from Fighting the Forces
Michelle Callander, "Bram Stoker's Buffy: Traditional Gothic and Contemporary Culture" Slayage (3)
M 9/5 ARTMAKING: MULTIPLE ART FORMS; Teaser for Welcome to the Hellmouth I (1)
W 9/7
BUFFY and ANGEL: SEASON 2
Angel (7), School Hard (15), Surprise (25), Innocence (26), Passion (29),
Becoming I and II (33, 34)
Readings, Weeks 3 and 4 (Buffy/Angel)
Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse, “Sex and the Single Vampire: The Evolution of the Vampire Lothario and Its Representation in Buffy” from Fighting the Forces
Elizabeth Krimmer and Shilpa Raval, “Digging the Undead: Death and Desire in Buffy” from Fighting the Forces
Carolyn Cocca "First Word 'Jail,' Second Word 'Bait'": Adolescent Sexuality, Feminist Theories, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer” Slayage (3)
S 9/11 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 7, 15, 25, 26
M 9/12
W 9/14 ARTMAKING: THEATRE. Surprise (25) and Innocence (26)
S 9/18 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 29, 33, 34, 42
M 9/19 ARTMAKING: THEATRE. Surprise (25) and Innocence (26)
W 9/21
MASCULINITIES
Spike: Lover's Walk (42), Xander: The Zeppo (47), Giles: A New Man (68)
Riley: Goodbye, Iowa (70), The Troika: Dead Things (113).
Readings, Weeks 5 and 6 (Masculinities)
Stevie Simkin, “ ‘Who died and made you John Wayne?’: Anxious Masculinity in Buffy the Vampire Slayer ” Slayage (11-12)
Arwen Spicer, “ ‘Love’s Bitch but Man Enough to Admit It’: Spike’s Hybridized Gender” Slayage (7)
S 9/25 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 47, 68, 70, 113
M 9/26
W 9/28
S 10/2 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 37, 41, 48, 49
M 10/3 ARTMAKING: FANFICTION.
W 10/5 ARTMAKING: THEATRE (in-class assignment) & FANFICTION (homework)
*First Paper Due*
BUFFY and FAITH: SEASONS 3, 4
Faith, Hope and Trick (37), Revelations (41), Bad Girls (48), Consequences (49), Enemies (51),
Graduation Day 1 and 2 (55, 56), This Year's Girl (71), Who Are You (72)
Readings, Weeks 7 and 8 (Buffy/Faith)
Elyce Rae Helford, “ ‘My Emotions Give Me Power’: The Containment of Girls Anger in Buffy” from Fighting the Forces
S 10/9 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 51, 55, 56, 71, 72
M 10/10
W 10/12
S 10/16 Sunday Night Buffy: Fall Break
M 10/17 ARTMAKING: VIDDING.
W 10/19
ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSES AND REALITIES
The Wish (43), Something Blue (65), Superstar (73), Tabula Rasa (108), Normal Again (117)
Readings, Weeks 8 and 9 (Alternate Universes)
Kristina Busse, “Crossing the Final Taboo: Family, Sexuality, and Incest in Buffyverse Fan Fiction” from Fighting the Forces
Justine Larbalestier, “Buffy’s Mary Sue is Jonathan: Buffy Acknowledges the Fans” from Fighting the Forces
S 10/23 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 43, 65, 73, 108, 117
M 10/24
W 10/26
WILLOW and TARA, BUFFY and SPIKE: SEASONS 4, 5, 6
New Moon Rising (75), Family (84), Fool for Love (85), Crush (92), Intervention (96),
The Gift (100), Afterlife (103), Smashed (109), Wrecked (110)
Seeing Red (119), Villains (120), Grave (122)
Readings, Weeks 10, 11, 12 (Willow/Tara, Buffy/Spike)
Judith Tabron, “Girl on Girl Politics: Willow/Tara and New Approaches to Media Fandom” Slayage (13-14)
Gwynn Symonds, “A Little More Soul Than Is Written: James Marsters’ Performance of Spike and the Ambiguity of Evil in Sunnydale” Slayage (16)
Justine Larbalestier “ ‘The Only Thing Better than Killing a Slayer’: Heterosexuality and Sex in Buffy the Vampire Slayer” from Reading the Vampire Slayer
Gwyn Symonds, " ‘Solving Problems with Sharp Objects’: Female Empowerment, Sex and Violence in Buffy the Vampire Slayer” Slayage (11-12)
S 10/30 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 75, 84, 85, 92
M 10/31
W 11/2
S 11/6 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 96, 100, 103, 109
M 11/7 ARTMAKING: COMICS
W 11/9
S 11/13 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 110, 119, 120, 122
M 11/14 STUDENT PRESENTATIONS: NON-SCOOBY FEMININITIES
W 11/16
AVANT-GARDE NARRATIVE and COMMUNICATION SNAFU
Hush (66), Restless (78), The Body (94), Once More With Feeling (107)
Readings, Week 13, 14
Michael Adams, Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon
S 11/20 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 66, 78, 94, 107
M 11/21 Hush (66)
W 11/23 Restless (78)
S 11/27 Sunday Night Buffy: Thanksgiving Break
M 11/28 The Body (94)
ARTMAKING: THEATRE
W 11/30 Once More with Feeling (107)
THE "I" IN TEAM: SEASON 7
Dirty Girls (140), Touched (142), End of Days (143), Chosen (144)
Readings, Week 15
Arwen Spicer, “ ‘It’s Bloody Brilliant!’: The Undermining of Metanarrative Feminism in the Season Seven Arc Narrative of Buffy” Slayage (15)
Will Shetterly, "learning from the dead: The Buffy Lessons" (http://www.geocities.com/qwertyranch/writing/buffylessons.html)
S 12/4 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 140, 142, 143, 144
M 12/5
W 12/7
F 12/9 Performance Day
*Artmaking Projects Due. Time TBA.*
W 12/14 *Final Paper Due.*
Grades
Short Paper 10%
Final Art Project 20%
Long Paper 30%
Group Presentation 10%
Participation 30%
Both Coppa and Peck will look at your work and consult about grades before returning it to you.
Some Notes
Note on Academic Honesty: We expect you to know and abide by the Academic Behavior Code and the College Plagiarism Policy. These are available online via links on the Message Board.
Note on Students with Disabilities: Students with documented disabilities will receive appropriate accommodation as recommended by Academic Support. See one of us as soon as possible about making the necessary arrangements.
Note on Late Work: Deadlines are important. Extensions will be granted only in the case of serious illness, bereavement, or family emergency. To receive an extension, you must contact one of us prior to the beginning of the class period on which the assignment is due. If an assignment is late, we will deduct one full grade (e. g. A- becomes B-) per day.
Note on Participation: This is going to be a complex experience. We’ll be watching TV and analyzing it. We’ll be reading scholarship. We’ll be discussing the series in person and online. We’ll be making art in several genres. We expect you to enter into all of these activities with gusto. As regards the ARTMAKING workshops, we recognize that people have different levels of experience with the various art forms we’re using. Some of you are theatre people. Some are fiction writers. Any vidders? Graphic artists? Web Designers? We don’t expect everyone to exhibit the same degree of mastery of each of these forms. We do expect everyone to participate in these experiences with an interested, inquisitive spirit. At least initially, we will frame artmaking as another form of critical inquiry - a way to gather evidence, perceive patterns, and make meanings within the Buffyverse.
ONSTAGE WITH BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Instructors: Drs. Francesca Coppa (English) and James Peck (Theatre)
Description: The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer filters the monstrous panoramas of gothic melodrama through California youth culture to offer complex popular representations of contemporary life. Patrolling a panoply of social evils encountered by young adults, Buffy raises but does not neatly resolve anxieties of gender, sexuality, and race as they haunt and occasionally terrorize American society. This course will examine BTVS and its many extensions into popular culture (through such media as short stories, websites, comic books, video games, and fanvids) in light of the growing and diverse body of scholarship on the series. Does Buffy stake out progressive (especially feminist and queer) positions? Or does it defang anti-authoritarian ideals, reiterating commodified stereotypes of resistance? Our research will encompass fan communities who debate the outcome of controversial plot strands and create new stories about the characters. In addition to analyzing key episodes, students will imaginatively appropriate the Buffyverse through theatre, fiction writing, and vidding. Students with other interests (graphic art, dance, web-design, etc.) could use those media instead. Fun much? Join us on the Hellmouth, Scoobies.
Critical Lenses: We are going to bring three different and yet interrelated approaches to BTVS; as we watch and discuss key episodes, we will consider:
1) Subject Positions and Ideology
BTVS foregrounds issues of identity; such lived categories as gender, sexuality, race, class, generation and species exert immense influence in the Buffyverse. How does the series represent this range of subjectivities? How does it suggest people occupying different subject positions relate to one another? What sorts of subjectivity and relationship does the series endorse? Condemn? Into what subject positions does the series invite the viewer? How does it do so? Often, BTVS overturns or confounds debilitating cultural stereotypes; at other times, it seems to reiterate them. What might these ideological contradictions mean?
2) Genre and Intertexts
BTVS is self-proclaimed genre fiction; it revels in generic conventions. Obviously, the gothic (especially the vampire story) looms large throughout. In addition, the series partakes of melodrama, soap opera, "quality television," experimental cinema, heroic fiction, graphic novels, science fiction, “chick lit,” romance, and bildingsroman. Sometimes, BTVS replays the conventions of genre; at times, it subverts them. What are BTVS’s intertexts? How does it converse with them?
3) Production and Reception
BTVS is a television show. Not an insignificant detail, this. The semiotics of television will preoccupy us. In this respect, the dramatic structures of the scripts and the visual structures of frame composition and editing will be primary objects of analysis. We will factor in the economic context of mass media storytelling. We will also investigate the reception of the series. BTVS is among the most critically acclaimed series in the history of television. Why? BTVS has fans, (including your instructors!), and its fan base continues to grow three years after the series stopped production. We will look at fandom history and fan cultures, working toward an ethnography of the fans of BTVS. Our materials will encompass fan criticism, interactions between fans and the creators of the series, and fan-created visual art, vids, and fiction. We will approach fan artworks both as creative products and as modes of analysis.
Requirements: * Full--nay, aggressive--participation in all classroom discussion.
* Mandatory multiple viewings of all required episodes.
* Occasional one-to-two page homeworks and in-class freewrites.
* Participation in all artmaking workshops.
* Participation in our online community; we will be watching together and commenting on episodes there.
* One 4 page paper. Due Wednesday, October 5.
* One 8-10 page paper which either close-reads a particular episode or is a sustained, specific, multi-episode treatment of a theme. Due Wednesday, December 14.
* One 10 minute group presentation. Wednesday, November 16.
* One art project in the genre of your choice. Genres might include: vidding, theatre, fanfiction, comic art, dance, visual art, website design or something else approved by the instructors. Due on Performance Day, Friday, December 9.
Required Texts: Topping, The Complete Slayer
Wilcox and Lavery, Fighting The Forces: What’s at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Adams, Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon
Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season 2, Volume 3
Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies, www.slayage.tv
Recommended: Viewing the entire run of the series at least once.
Kaveney, Reading The Vampire Slayer
The Assignments: Complete all readings prior to the first Monday they’re assigned. See all episodes for each week prior to the Monday we begin discussing them. Episodes will be shown weekly on Sunday nights in Library B-02 beginning at 8:00 pm. If you can’t make this time, it is your responsibility to see the required episodes on your own. The DVDs are on reserve in the Library.
~ ~ ~
WELCOME TO THE HELLMOUTH: SEASON 1
Welcome to the Hellmouth: 1 and 2 (1, 2), The Witch (3), Prophecy Girl (12)
Readings, Week 1: (Intro)
David Lavery, “I wrote my thesis on you: Buffy Studies as Academic Cult” Slayage (13-14)
Sue Turnbull, “Not just another Buffy paper: Towards an Aesthetics of Television” Slayage (13-14)
M 8/29 Introduction
T 8/30 Special Tuesday showing of Welcome to the Hellmouth I and II (1,2); Library B - 02, 8:00.
W 8/31
S 9/4 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 3, 12
Readings, Week 2 (Intro)
Rhonda Wilcox, “ ‘Who Died and Made Her the Boss?’: Patterns of Mortality in Buffy” from Fighting the Forces
Patricia Pender, “ ‘I’m Buffy and You’re … History’: The Postmodern Politics of Buffy” from Fighting the Forces
Michelle Callander, "Bram Stoker's Buffy: Traditional Gothic and Contemporary Culture" Slayage (3)
M 9/5 ARTMAKING: MULTIPLE ART FORMS; Teaser for Welcome to the Hellmouth I (1)
W 9/7
BUFFY and ANGEL: SEASON 2
Angel (7), School Hard (15), Surprise (25), Innocence (26), Passion (29),
Becoming I and II (33, 34)
Readings, Weeks 3 and 4 (Buffy/Angel)
Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse, “Sex and the Single Vampire: The Evolution of the Vampire Lothario and Its Representation in Buffy” from Fighting the Forces
Elizabeth Krimmer and Shilpa Raval, “Digging the Undead: Death and Desire in Buffy” from Fighting the Forces
Carolyn Cocca "First Word 'Jail,' Second Word 'Bait'": Adolescent Sexuality, Feminist Theories, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer” Slayage (3)
S 9/11 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 7, 15, 25, 26
M 9/12
W 9/14 ARTMAKING: THEATRE. Surprise (25) and Innocence (26)
S 9/18 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 29, 33, 34, 42
M 9/19 ARTMAKING: THEATRE. Surprise (25) and Innocence (26)
W 9/21
MASCULINITIES
Spike: Lover's Walk (42), Xander: The Zeppo (47), Giles: A New Man (68)
Riley: Goodbye, Iowa (70), The Troika: Dead Things (113).
Readings, Weeks 5 and 6 (Masculinities)
Stevie Simkin, “ ‘Who died and made you John Wayne?’: Anxious Masculinity in Buffy the Vampire Slayer ” Slayage (11-12)
Arwen Spicer, “ ‘Love’s Bitch but Man Enough to Admit It’: Spike’s Hybridized Gender” Slayage (7)
S 9/25 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 47, 68, 70, 113
M 9/26
W 9/28
S 10/2 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 37, 41, 48, 49
M 10/3 ARTMAKING: FANFICTION.
W 10/5 ARTMAKING: THEATRE (in-class assignment) & FANFICTION (homework)
*First Paper Due*
BUFFY and FAITH: SEASONS 3, 4
Faith, Hope and Trick (37), Revelations (41), Bad Girls (48), Consequences (49), Enemies (51),
Graduation Day 1 and 2 (55, 56), This Year's Girl (71), Who Are You (72)
Readings, Weeks 7 and 8 (Buffy/Faith)
Elyce Rae Helford, “ ‘My Emotions Give Me Power’: The Containment of Girls Anger in Buffy” from Fighting the Forces
S 10/9 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 51, 55, 56, 71, 72
M 10/10
W 10/12
S 10/16 Sunday Night Buffy: Fall Break
M 10/17 ARTMAKING: VIDDING.
W 10/19
ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSES AND REALITIES
The Wish (43), Something Blue (65), Superstar (73), Tabula Rasa (108), Normal Again (117)
Readings, Weeks 8 and 9 (Alternate Universes)
Kristina Busse, “Crossing the Final Taboo: Family, Sexuality, and Incest in Buffyverse Fan Fiction” from Fighting the Forces
Justine Larbalestier, “Buffy’s Mary Sue is Jonathan: Buffy Acknowledges the Fans” from Fighting the Forces
S 10/23 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 43, 65, 73, 108, 117
M 10/24
W 10/26
WILLOW and TARA, BUFFY and SPIKE: SEASONS 4, 5, 6
New Moon Rising (75), Family (84), Fool for Love (85), Crush (92), Intervention (96),
The Gift (100), Afterlife (103), Smashed (109), Wrecked (110)
Seeing Red (119), Villains (120), Grave (122)
Readings, Weeks 10, 11, 12 (Willow/Tara, Buffy/Spike)
Judith Tabron, “Girl on Girl Politics: Willow/Tara and New Approaches to Media Fandom” Slayage (13-14)
Gwynn Symonds, “A Little More Soul Than Is Written: James Marsters’ Performance of Spike and the Ambiguity of Evil in Sunnydale” Slayage (16)
Justine Larbalestier “ ‘The Only Thing Better than Killing a Slayer’: Heterosexuality and Sex in Buffy the Vampire Slayer” from Reading the Vampire Slayer
Gwyn Symonds, " ‘Solving Problems with Sharp Objects’: Female Empowerment, Sex and Violence in Buffy the Vampire Slayer” Slayage (11-12)
S 10/30 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 75, 84, 85, 92
M 10/31
W 11/2
S 11/6 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 96, 100, 103, 109
M 11/7 ARTMAKING: COMICS
W 11/9
S 11/13 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 110, 119, 120, 122
M 11/14 STUDENT PRESENTATIONS: NON-SCOOBY FEMININITIES
W 11/16
AVANT-GARDE NARRATIVE and COMMUNICATION SNAFU
Hush (66), Restless (78), The Body (94), Once More With Feeling (107)
Readings, Week 13, 14
Michael Adams, Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon
S 11/20 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 66, 78, 94, 107
M 11/21 Hush (66)
W 11/23 Restless (78)
S 11/27 Sunday Night Buffy: Thanksgiving Break
M 11/28 The Body (94)
ARTMAKING: THEATRE
W 11/30 Once More with Feeling (107)
THE "I" IN TEAM: SEASON 7
Dirty Girls (140), Touched (142), End of Days (143), Chosen (144)
Readings, Week 15
Arwen Spicer, “ ‘It’s Bloody Brilliant!’: The Undermining of Metanarrative Feminism in the Season Seven Arc Narrative of Buffy” Slayage (15)
Will Shetterly, "learning from the dead: The Buffy Lessons" (http://www.geocities.com/qwertyranch/writing/buffylessons.html)
S 12/4 Sunday Night Buffy: episodes 140, 142, 143, 144
M 12/5
W 12/7
F 12/9 Performance Day
*Artmaking Projects Due. Time TBA.*
W 12/14 *Final Paper Due.*
Grades
Short Paper 10%
Final Art Project 20%
Long Paper 30%
Group Presentation 10%
Participation 30%
Both Coppa and Peck will look at your work and consult about grades before returning it to you.
Some Notes
Note on Academic Honesty: We expect you to know and abide by the Academic Behavior Code and the College Plagiarism Policy. These are available online via links on the Message Board.
Note on Students with Disabilities: Students with documented disabilities will receive appropriate accommodation as recommended by Academic Support. See one of us as soon as possible about making the necessary arrangements.
Note on Late Work: Deadlines are important. Extensions will be granted only in the case of serious illness, bereavement, or family emergency. To receive an extension, you must contact one of us prior to the beginning of the class period on which the assignment is due. If an assignment is late, we will deduct one full grade (e. g. A- becomes B-) per day.
Note on Participation: This is going to be a complex experience. We’ll be watching TV and analyzing it. We’ll be reading scholarship. We’ll be discussing the series in person and online. We’ll be making art in several genres. We expect you to enter into all of these activities with gusto. As regards the ARTMAKING workshops, we recognize that people have different levels of experience with the various art forms we’re using. Some of you are theatre people. Some are fiction writers. Any vidders? Graphic artists? Web Designers? We don’t expect everyone to exhibit the same degree of mastery of each of these forms. We do expect everyone to participate in these experiences with an interested, inquisitive spirit. At least initially, we will frame artmaking as another form of critical inquiry - a way to gather evidence, perceive patterns, and make meanings within the Buffyverse.