Buffy Scholar/Critic
Dr. Linda Jencson currently instructs in the Anthropology Department of Appalachian State University. Her specialties within anthropology include cross cultural religion, pop culture, folklore and disaster studies. What better preparation for Buffy Studies? Her dissertation on Wicca and several publications focus on the uses of myth and story to motivate social action, especially in times of crisis. "I have found, and truly believe, there in nothin' so bad, it can't be made better with a story."--Caleb
2007 Popular Culture Association of the South/American Culture Association of the South Joint Meetings, Jacksonville, FL, “’My Rifle’s as Bright as My Sweetheart’s Eyes:’ Joss Whedon’s Firefly, and the Songs of the Clancy Brothers—Tropes of Irish Ethnicity.”
2007 American Anthropological Association, Society for the Anthropology of Religion Annual Meeting, Phoenix, AZ, “The Secular Re-enchantment of the World: or How Works of SciFi/Fantasy Co-opt Religious Tropes to Express a 21st Century Morality through Myths of Supernatural Heroes and Demons.”
2007 It’s the End of the World Again: Why Buffy Still Matters Conference, University of North Carolina: Greensboro, Women’s and Gender Studies Program, “The Zero Commandments: Buffy/Angel and Other Modern Wonder Tales as Teaching Tools of a New Egalitarian Ethos.”
2006 Conference on the Whedonverses, Gordon College, Barnesville, GA, “The Serenityverse: Signs and Signals of Troubled Times.”
2004 Slayage Conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Nashville, TN, "The Male Hero in Feminist Society: Comparisons of Buffy's Spike and the Iroquois' Hiawatha"