Studying the Slayer: Buffy and the power of Fantasy TV

Over seven seasons, one TV show re-defined popular television. It evolved storytelling, audience expectations, and production conditions and made its creator into a household name.

Over six weeks, you’ll consider some of the key themes, philosophical ideas, and aesthetic choices.

With guidance from a world expert, this course will not only enhance your knowledge of and engagement with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it will also augment your other television and streaming experiences.

By the end of the course, you’ll be confidently talking about mise-en-scene, show runners, network histories, and, of course, our renowned hero.

This course can only be purchased directly from the store if you are accessing it from the United Kingdom.

If you are accessing it from outside the United Kingdom, please email engage@edgehill.ac.uk to enquire further.

Please do not try to buy the course through the store. 

Course Description

This 6-week course includes 2-hour sessions each week, packed with practical knowledge and hands-on activities. In this course you’ll cover:

Week 1: This week will introduce the premise of the show and its characters, consider what kind of show Buffy is, and take a preliminary look at some of the themes and production techniques we will look at over the next few weeks.

Week 2: We will examine storytelling, script, dialogue and humour in the show and see how these aspects are used for different characters, narrative and thematic purposes.

Week 3: This session will assess the ways that genre expectation is worked with, undermined and re-purposed to produce rich, complex narratives whose ethical outcomes are always ambiguous and problematised.

Week 4: This week it is composition, costume and mise-en-scene that will be the objects of discussion, especially insofar as they help us consider character, narrative, theme and ethics.

Week 5: Sound effects, music, and silence all contribute to the creation of a scenes and episode’s impact. This session will help to explain how.

Special Guest star for Week 6: Join a Q&A session with Jane Espenson. In this exciting culmination of the course, you will be able to ask Jane about her time as a writer and producer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.