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Just because the show's over doesn't mean it ever has to end for you, Meredith...
"It's tough for scholars to be taken seriously when their subject is a TV show about a California blonde fighting evil in a high school built on a gateway to hell. Particularly when the title is as campy as 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.'
"But enough professors and writers study the comedic drama and its spinoff, 'Angel,' to hold a deadly serious academic conference here this weekend attracting more than 325 people.
"Buffyologists from as far away as Singapore were presenting 190 papers on topics ranging from 'slayer slang' to 'postmodern reflections on the culture of consumption' to 'Buffy and the new American Buddhism.'
"There was even a self-conscious talk by David Lavery, an English professor at Middle Tennessee State University, on Buffy studies 'as an academic cult.'
"Lavery and Rhonda Wilcox, a professor at Gordon College in Georgia, co-hosted the conference and are known as the 'father and mother' of Buffy studies. They acknowledged they've endured a lot of ridicule from colleagues, but said that's part of the topic's allure.
"'It keeps the uncool people away. If you can't get past the title you have no business watching,' said Lavery, who co-wrote a book on Buffy with Wilcox.
"Jana Riess, a religious book editor for Publishers Weekly, said she's gotten tremendous response to her book 'What Would Buffy Do? A Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide.' On Friday, the conference bookstore sold out its copies and she had to bring extras in from her car.
"Riess was thrilled with the opportunity to connect with fellow Buffyologists:
"'We are the few, the proud, the lonely.'"
