Buffing up Academics

The Miami Herald website ran a story this morning about how Henderson State University in Arkansas will be holding a 3-day academic conference on all things Whedon, focusing mostly on Buffy The Vampire Slayer starting today.

I'm sure you're waiting on me to go off on some tangent where I say that this is a waste of time and money, but you won't hear it. Yep, I'm on the side that says this is a good idea.

Why? Well, we can learn a lot from Buffy; I know I have. I can't say it's all been good (pretty much anything have to do with storylines in Season Six for instance), but there are life lessons that one can attain from watching the series without being bludgeoned over the head with metaphors (for the most part) and a general feeling that there's one way that's right and one way that's wrong. There is a grey. I've learned that over the last few years, and yes, it took awhile to admit that (not that I'm excusing Spike).

There will be over 90 academic papers discussed during the conference. A couple of them deal with feminism and identity, which are definitely important subjects. Some, I'm sure, won't be quite as important…but let's not dwell on those. Hell, I have friends in college and I can tell you that you'll learn more from Joss Whedon then you will from some of these professors.