That special bi-yearly time is coming! Slayage will be here before we know it! This is a very special event for Whedon fans and scholars. Though there’s still a couple months before the proposal deadline, I got things together a little early.  Here’s an abstract of the paper I have proposed for submission:

As D.H. Lawrence indicates, the notion of the Apocalypse has been around since at least “second century B.C.” and it continues to speak to the human consciousness (Apocalypse 79).  Joseph Campbell asserts that the Apocalypse remains a modern concern.  He also explains, “We must not understand apocalypse literally, not as some physical destruction and judgment on the world, or as something that is going to occur in the future. The kingdom is here; it does not come through expectation” (Campbell, Thou Art That 106).  As the kingdom is here, so too is the Apocalypse.  We breathe life into it through our concern about it.  Lawrence explains the simple definition of Apocalypse as “Revelation” (59).  What truth, then, does the Apocalypse reveal?  Quite simply, the Apocalypse can be read as the end of things as we know them.  It is, therefore, the quintessential metaphor of change and transformation. How are we to live with the metaphorical Apocalypse, the ever-looming threat of change and destruction?  Joss Whedon and D.H. Lawrence provide us with the same answer through their respective metaphors and criticism.  Comparing Lawrence’s Apocalypse with Whedon’s Angel achieves two purposes: an attitude of how to approach the metaphorical Apocalypse, and a demonstration that our television screens have the potential to present us with great mythic images. Angel brings to focus the journey of the hero and the threat of the Apocalypse.  As Lawrence and Campbell identify, this is not a literal threat of the world ending, yet the threat of change to the world as we know it.  Through Angel, Whedon takes the symbol of the Apocalypse and uses it to show humanity how to exist in this beautiful and frightening life, in the same manner that Lawrence does in his Apocalypse.  Together, these texts offer a modern conversation on a timeless concern.