Buffy Scholar/Critic

Dr. Cynthea Masson teaches English composition and literature at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, British Columbia. She earned the Ph.D. at McMaster University (major field: medieval visionary and alchemical literature). She can be reached at cynthea.masson@viu.ca. 

Recent Papers / Publications

Papers on the works of Joss Whedon

“It’s a Thing We Do”: Crying with Buffy and Angel.  On the Verge of Tears: Why the Movies, Television, Music, and Literature Make us Cry.  Ed. David Lavery and Michele Bryers.  [forthcoming]

“What the Hell: The Girl in Question.”  Paper presented at SCW3: The Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses, Henderson College, Arkadelphia, AR, June 5-8, 2008.

“‘But She Was Naked! And All Articulate!’:  The Rhetoric of Seduction in Firefly.”  Investigating Firefly and Serenity: Science Fiction on the Frontier.  Ed. Rhonda Wilcox and Tanya Cochran.  New York: I.B. Tauris, 2008. 19-30.

“‘Can You Just Be Kissing Me Now?’: The Question(s) of Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Televising Queer Women.  Ed. Rebecca Beirne.  New York and Houndmills, UK:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 65-81.

 “Queer Eye of that Vampire Guy:  Spike and the Aesthetics of Camp.”  Co-authored with Marni Stanley.  Buffy and Aesthetics.  Ed. Matthew Pateman.  Special Issue of Slayage:  The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies 22 (2006).  <http://www.slayageonline.com/essays/slayage22/Masson_Stanley.htm>.

“‘What Did You Sing About?’: Acts of Questioning in ‘Once More, with Feeling.’” Paper presented at SCW 2: The Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses, Gordon College, Barnesville,GA, May 26-28, 2006.  [Available online in the Slayage SW2 Archives.]

“‘Is That Just a Comforting Way of Not Answering the Question?’: Willow, Questions, and Affective Response in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Beyond Slayer Slang: Pragmatics, Discourse, and Style in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Ed. Michael Adams. Special Issue of Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies 20 (2006). <http://www.slayageonline.com/ essays/slayage20/Masson.htm>.

 

Other

The Elijah Tree (Chapter One).  Ashé 5.2 (Summer 2006): 226-246. 

“Queer Copulations and the Pursuit of Divine Conjunction in Two Middle English Alchemical Poems.”  Intersections of Sexuality and the Divine in Medieval Culture: The Word Made Flesh.  Ed. Susannah Chewning.  Burlington, VT:  Ashgate, 2005.  37-47. 

“Of Course There’s Something Queer about the Canon:  A Reading of Chaucer’s Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale in Relation to the Alchemical Hermaphrodite.”  Pataphysica 2 (2004): 102-116.

“Intention to Write, Intention to Teach: Vernacular Poetry and Pedagogy in Thomas Norton's Ordinal of Alchemy.” Florilegium 17 (December 2000): 45-58. 

“The Point of Coincidence: Rhetoric and the Apophatic in Julian of Norwich’s Showings.”  Julian of Norwich: A Book of Essays. Ed. Sandra McEntire. New York: Garland, 1998. 153-181.