Calls for Papers/Proposals
​Slayage General Call for Papers
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The editorial team of Slayage: The International Journal of Buffy+ invites submissions of essays or proposals for upcoming issues of the journal. Submissions are accepted throughout the year. The journal publishes issues twice yearly.
 
The plus mark in the journal’s new subtitle indicates the “fuzzy set” of which Buffy is the center. Drawing on Brian Attebery's description in Strategies of Fantasy, the fuzzy set is “defined not by boundaries but by a center.” What Slayage is interested in is a fuzzy set with the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer at its center, and (primarily visual) media more or less resembling Buffy forming the periphery. This set does not yet have a good name of its own, but we know it when we see it. A scholar might use Buffy as a yardstick to tell us why we should consider their chosen topic to be part of this fuzzy set. Is your object of study “high stakes TV” with a kick-ass young female lead? A movie or book series concerned with the frequent irruption of the supernatural into the mundane? Are snarky humor and linguistic play part of the appeal of the source text? Strong characterization, an emphasis on relationships, and long story arcs spanning a season or more? Moral dilemmas, stylish but affordable boots, and starship captains with tight pants? The “fuzzy set” provides coherence without setting firm boundaries.

​The “plus” is also meant to reference all the works that are genealogically connected to Buffy. How much of Buffy is there in David Greenwalt and Jim and Lynn Kouf’s Grimm? And is there nothing of Marti Noxon’s Buffy in Noxon’s Camille Preaker of Sharp Objects? And ought we to say (as well as Gillian Flynn’s) Amy Adams’ Camille Preaker? What about Amy Adams’ unnerving performance of another Southerner in Buffy (“Family,” 5.6)? Does Christophe Beck’s music for WandaVision have no relation to his music for Buffy? The connections might be intertextual (e.g. Veronica Mars, Maharakshak Devi, Supernatural) or they might simply be the creators themselves.

Slayage is a trans-disciplinary journal with a trans-disciplinary audience. We welcome a variety of approaches and critical frameworks, including but not limited to: historical, cultural, commercial, production-related, aesthetic, generic, and thematic. We invite explorations from various theoretical perspectives.

Proposals should not exceed 250 words, and should include the following:
  1. a title reflecting your argument;
  2. a clear statement of your argument/thesis and/or key research questions;
  3. an identification of the corpus that will be the focus of your study.


Essay submissions should be between 4500 and 10,000 words. Because Slayage is MLA-indexed, MLA documentation is preferred; however, the editors will accept a different documentation style should it be justified by the academic discipline framing the paper. Complete submission guidelines may be found on the journal section of this website.

Rolling submissions accepted.
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Send submissions of proposals and completed essays to [email protected].

Please see the journal’s Submission Guidelines for more information: https://www.buffystudies.org/submission-guidelines.html