Slayage: The Journal of Whedon Studies, and the Whedon Studies Association are now accepting submissions for the eighth biennial Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses (SCW8). The conference will be held June 21-24, 2018, on the campus of the University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama.

Originally convened as The Slayage Conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Nashville, Tennessee in 2004, The Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses has been held in cities throughout the US, in Canada, and in the UK. In the 16 years of its history, university-affiliated and independent scholars have traveled from across the globe, including the US, Canada, India, Germany, Poland, the UK, and Australia, to present their work at Slayage conferences. SCW8 will be the first time the conference has been convened in Alabama.
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The CFP and submissions link is located at http://www.whedonstudies.tv/scw8--2018.html.

​Questions regarding proposals can be directed to the conference email address: [email protected].

Watcher Junior: The Undergraduate Journal of Whedon Studies is seeking two individuals to co-edit the journal for a three-year term in an unpaid service position as part of the Whedon Studies Association (WSA). The journal publishes high quality work in all areas of Whedon scholarship from undergraduate students across the globe. Submissions undergo a peer-reviewed process and revisions before publication. The journal provides an educational experience for students to learn about and participate in the publication process with guidance from editors. The journal published its first issue in July 2005 and continues to publish biannually in April and October.
 Responsibilities
Solicit and evaluate articles from undergraduates and correspond with student contributors throughout the revision and publication process. Maintain a list of reviewers and solicit their reviews of student work. Edit final version of articles, format PDFs for web-based publication, upload and maintain Watcher Junior pages on WSA website. Write press releases. Maintain Watcher Junior Facebook page. Advertise and promote the journal. Maintain ties with the WSA.
 Required Qualifications
Significant experience teaching undergraduate students preferably with a focus on writing and the draft process;
Strong organizational skills and ability to meet deadlines;
Ability to communicate effectively and efficiently with a wide audience including undergraduate students, Whedon scholars, and the public;
Comfort using web-page building program (Weebly);
Broad knowledge of Whedon texts and accompanying scholarship;  
Ability to collaborate effectively;
Self-starter.
 Timeline
Submit a cover letter outlining your interest in the position, qualifications and skills, along with Curriculum Vitae to Cynthia Burkhead ([email protected]) by June 1. We recommend that editors apply as a team. Co-editors will be selected by September 1 and will shadow the current editors through publication of the October 2017 issue. New editors will take full responsibility of the journal November 1, 2017.
If you have questions please contact current Watcher Junior co-editors, Jodie Kreider ([email protected]) and Meghan Winchell ([email protected]).  

Read the Summer 2016 issue here.

The Winter 2016 issue of Slayage was released today. Read essays here.

The jury for the Whedon Studies Awards ("Mr. Pointy" Awards) invites nominations of excellent scholarship copyrighted in 2015. Learn more about the awards and how to participate here.

The WSA is pleased to announce the keynote and featured speakers for SCW7. Read more on the conference's website.

At Home in the Whedonverse: Domestic Entanglements in the Works of Joss Whedon
Deadline: 1 November 2015
Editor/Contact: Juliette Kitchens ([email protected])
PDF

Domestic representations feature prominently throughout the Whedonverse, frequently complicating not only narratological and rhetorical structures, but also contemporary ideological and sociopolitical assumptions. For example, both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel blur the distinctions between public and private domains by creating home-spaces from public, often commercial, domains. Firefly positions characters to live and work in spaces that challenge dichotomized readings of domesticity while echoing Homi Bhabha’s concept of the “unhomely,” and Dollhouse advances notions of hybridity’s object-entanglements in the posthuman home. Domesticity, itself, is complicated further when we consider the voyeuristic commentary offered by Cabin in the Woods or that Whedon set Much Ado About Nothing in his own home.

This collection invites original contributions focusing on representations of domestic space throughout the television and web series, films, and comics constituting the Whedonverse. From the small screen to the big screen to the mobile screen and the page, Whedon projects consistently display domiciliary signs of the subjectivity of objects, contestation of public and private spheres, and hybridity generated within technological and biological relationships. A focused exploration of the diversity with which domestic spaces can be read within the ‘Verse offers new perspectives to the ways in which alternative sites of cultural conflict become venues for fractured, contested, entangled participatory and discursive actions.

The anticipated collection seeks to showcase a range of theoretical lenses, including but not limited to feminism(s), posthumanism, new materialism(s), and object-oriented rhetoric(s), in order to frame the significant spatial and relational conflicts in Whedon’s films, series, and comics. Successful proposals will explore the constructions of, complications with, and relations between public and private domains and objects through one or more of these methodologies.

Key questions this text aims to address include, but are not limited to:

• How is domestic space used to simulate, provoke, or reflect social transformation?
  
• How do domestic domains in the Whedonverse challenge gender constructs?
  
• In what ways do these texts and/or specific spaces challenge constructions of domesticity (political, familial, ideological, etc)?
  
• How does technology impact domestic domains, interactions, and objects?
  
• How is narrative domesticity influenced or altered between mediums (i.e. television, comics, web series, films)?

Please send query letters and abstracts for proposed chapter-length original work (300-500 words) to Juliette Kitchens ([email protected]) with the subject line: Whedon Collection. Proposals should be submitted no later than November 1, 2015. Selected contributors will be notified by 1 January 2016.

Scholars can now access Whedonology: An Academic Whedon Studies Bibliography on this website. The WSA wishes to thank Alysa Hornick as well as her predecessors and peers for making this important resource accessible to the scholarly community.

The latest issue of Slayage--a guest-edited double issue on Firefly and Serenity--was released today. Also be sure to read Rhonda V. Wilcox's editorial explaining the new subtitle of the publication: The Journal of Whedon Studies.