Cynthea Masson

• B.A. (Guelph)
• M.A. (McMaster)
• Ph.D. (McMaster)

Middle English literature and language; medieval visionary, mystical, and alchemical literature and rhetoric; Whedon Studies; composition.

Prior to my forays into the academic world surrounding Buffy the Vampire Slayer, my research focused primarily on Chaucer, medieval mysticism, and medieval alchemical literature.  I spent much of 1999, thanks to a SSRHC postdoctoral fellowship, sitting in the medieval manuscript room of the British Library pouring over virtually incomprehensible but persistently interesting alchemical manuscripts.  One of my articles that evolved from this research is “Queer Copulations and the Pursuit of Divine Conjunction in Two Middle English Alchemical Poems” in Intersections of Sexuality and the Divine in Medieval Culture: The Word Made Flesh, edited by Susannah Chewning (Ashgate, 2005).  The creative results of my academic interests in medieval mysticism include a novel, The Elijah Tree (Rebel Satori Press, 2009).  After discovering Buffy in 2004, my research interests veered swiftly and decisively into the Whedonverse.  I have since published and presented on various works created by Joss Whedon, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.  My paper “What the Hell?—Angel's ‘The Girl in Question’” was awarded the Mr. Pointy Award for best paper at the Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses 3 (2008).  A conjunction of creativity and academic rigour informs both my writing and my teaching.  From first-year composition courses to upper-level medieval literature courses, I aim to bring Chaucer’s philosophy of “best sentence and moost solaas”—that is, both meaning and pleasure (General Prologue, 798).