Theology and The Undead: My Contribution



Spike

 I just got word that my proposal for the forthcoming edition called "Theology and the Undead" was accepted.  My proposed chapter is called "Vampires are People Too: Personalism in the Buffyverse" and it will follow the hero's journey of BtVS character Spike.  The whole aim of my chapter is to give a personalistic reading of the soul in buffyverse, particularly through Spike's journey to redemption.  I will use the theological personalisms of John Paul II (this being the year of his beatification, it seems fitting), and possibly Popel Benedict XVI.

Essentially, I will argue that the soul in the Buffyverse is not no so much about an ontological "eternal" spark with the human-animal, rather it simply enables humans to have first a conscience, and more deeply to become "men/women for others."  That is to say, the soul is functional (and thus personalistic) because it enables humans, and in the case of Spike, vampires, to find their identity and dignity in sets of relations.  The thing with the Buffyverse, however, is that its a completley immanent world, so the personalism is not fully a Christian one; rather it is like a secular paradoy of JPII's Christian Personalism. 

Kim Paffenroth and John Morehead are the editors.  You can find links to the project on their blogs, respectively:

Gospel of the Living Dead by Kim Paffenroth
TheoFantastique by John Morehead