Analysis of the Progression of the Representation of Female Protagonists in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV Shows Orphan Black and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Girl Power, Appropriated “Masculinity” in Conjunction with Femininity, Empowered Sexuality, and the Heterosexual Script

Buffy Summers goes from urban Los Angeles to Sunnydale, California after she is expelled from her previous high school on the grounds of an assortment of Slayer-related incidents. Chosen as the Slayer, Buffy is fated to fight against the forces of darkness, although this responsibility is not always conducive to leading the life of an average teenage girl. Upon moving to Sunnydale, Buffy quickly learns that Sunnydale High School sits directly above a “Hellmouth,” a hub for demon activity. Specifically, the entrance to the Hellmouth is located directly beneath the Sunnydale High School library, home to a curious collection of occult literature and Rupert Giles, the librarian, who Buffy soon discovers is her Watcher. Buffy befriends Xander Harris, a dorky boy who is often teased for his sense of style and lack of stereotypically masculine qualities, and Willow Rosenberg, a shy and awkward computer geek who spurs Buffy to accept her duties as the Slayer. Cordelia, the typical soap bitch of Sunnydale High School, often finds herself entangled with the “Scooby Gang’s” affairs, as the trio are aptly labeled (Jowett 30)

Slashing the slayer: a thematic analysis of homo-erotic Buffy fan fiction

This essay reports the research that I have carried out on Internet slash fiction based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series. I became interested in this area when I stumbled across slash fiction on the web myself and found that I enjoyed it. As someone who studies sexuality I was intrigued by this new (to me) form of erotic fiction and began to read the academic literature in the area. As I became familiar with the main theories, I wondered how they would relate to slash fiction written about Buffy, since this series differs from many of the programmes that have been slashed in the past. There are strong female and gay characters in Buffy, emotional and relationship-based themes are directly addressed, and the interaction between vampires and humans adds an additional dimension to the plot. In my study, I analysed both slash stories and my e-mail correspondence with the authors of Buffy slash. I come at the topic as both a slash reader and a psychologist, and I hope that I achieve a good balance between the position of mutual knowledge (as a fan) and critical distance (as a researcher) as recommended by Tulloch and Jenkins (1995). In the past, slash authors have been stigmatised by other fans and by convention organizers (Jenkins, 1992), and several of my participants felt that they had been misrepresented in previous research. I hope to be accountable in my research (Bannister et al., 1995) and to give a respectful and realistic portrayal of Buffy slash and its writers

Growing Philanthropy through Giving Circles: Lessons Learned from Start-up to Grantmaking

Individual donors coming together to pool their funds and to make grants, that is the idea behind giving circles. Emerging as a new trend in the United States, giving circles are typically organized around a particular issue or area of interest and are considered a high engagement form of philanthropy. The circle's grantmaking functions, proposal review, and site visits engage members in a participatory process that, when combined with the increased impact of pooled charitable resources, has strong appeal to many donors. The Baltimore Giving Project, housed at the Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers (USA), has supported the growth of many giving circles since 2000. Its report details the growth and lessons learned from two of these circles

Crossing classical thresholds: Gods, monsters and Hell dimensions in the Whedon universe

This essay shows that Classics provides an enriching context for the hugely popular youth-oriented fantasies on US television. Taking two Joss Whedon created series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, I examine what additional nuances might be revealed about the nature of the hero and how heroism is theorised from Greek and Roman mythical models to the present day. The figures of Aeneas in the Latin epic of Virgil and Prometheus in Aeschylus and Hesiod are connected to the supernatural aspects of Buffy and Angel who in a completely different cultural context face death and chthonic demons as real and metaphorical foes