Martin Buinicki and Anthony Enns bring us back to the basic purpose of tele
vision (the re-enforcement of governmental and cultural dictates on acceptable
social behavior, of course) with “Buffy the Vampire Disciplinarian: Institutional
Excess, Spiritual Technologies, and the New Economy of Power.” In the article
Buinicki and Enns question recent claims by scholars that the show provides a
subversive critique of our cultural institutions of power. Adopting the Foucauldian
model of punishment and disciphne, the authors view Buffy and her cohort in the
spin-off series Angel as incorporating traditional power relations and methods of
surveillance in their escapades. (It sounds a lot heavier than it really is, but we all
know what convoluted havoc Foucault can wreak on any analysis!)
Gregory Fowler presents a serious, yet disparaging (for Boomers) compari
son of Baby Boomers and Generation Xers, whom he prefers to call “Bridgers,” in
“Stone Throwing in Glass Houses: When Baby Boomers Met Generation X.” Af
ter a sobering discussion of the ways in which representatives from each genera
tion reacted to the shootings in the Columbine and Paducah high schools, Fowler
outhnes the “Bridger” mindset as he sees it — one that questions American “core
beliefs” such as rehgion, political institutions and familial structures. Fowler holds
nothing back in his detaihng of the wrongs Boomers (aka “the giant collective
Boomer ego”) have imposed upon their progeny, the “Xers.” Comments, Boomers?
In “AIDS Memoirs and Two Theoretical Approaches to the Dying Process,”
Dennis Russell apphes two theories on dying to the autobiographical works of
writers Paul Monette {Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir), Mark Matousek {Sex
Death Enlightenment), and anthropologist Eric Michaels {Unbecoming). Both
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of death and Charles A. Corr’s “task-based
approach” to coping with death prove applicable to these intellectuals’ experience
with AIDS. While Kubler-Ross separates coping with death into five stages - de
nial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance - Russell notes that Corr’s
approach deals with the dying person in a “holistic manner,” avoiding generaliza
tions and acknowledging individual experiences. The article invites readers to
explore a - sadly - growing body of creative work that is both important and
unsettling. AIDS memoirs expand the dimensions of autobiographical writing,
both personally and pohtically.
Matthew Kapell’s article, ''Civilization and its Discontents; American
Monomythic Structure as Historical Simulacrum” gives us a ghmpse of another
ever-expanding avenue in popular culture today — the world of the computer
simulation game. Kapell presents the computer games Civilization, versions I
through III, in relation to “American monomythic ideals” as put forth by Frederick
Jackson Turner at the end of the nineteenth century. He claims that the myths of
progress through expansion and conquest are still important today, as witnessed
by the popularity of these games, and aligns the dominant “American mythopoetic
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