Whodathunk a scholarly paper on Xena: Warrior Princess existed? But, knowing that as you now do, is it any surprise it's written by a raving Xeniac?

Author's Note: Watching Xena religiously has helped to keep me relatively sane over the past four years while I have been working towards my Ph.D. in Religion and Personality at Vanderbilt. This paper started life as a term paper on the first season episode TIES THAT BIND (20/120) for a course on Freud and religion in 1996. It was radically condensed and reorganized last Fall (with the help of this fine, on-line publication) in order to be included in a panel on "Women and Religion in Popular Culture" at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion on November 21, 1998. Prof. Sheila Briggs did not present her paper on "Xena Crucified: Christology and Post-Colonial Theory" until two days later, so I had the unexpected pleasure of delivering the first Xena research paper at the A.A.R. Since I was writing for Xenite and non-Xenite members of the academy, please forgive those portions that seem to be preaching to the converted, or belaboring the obvious.

Okay, now, to a certain extent I understand the desire to, upon realizing just how many hours you've wasted watching cartoon T&A Sapphic dramady, get something out of it, if only a scholarly paper for Vanderbilt. When I had cancer I'd watch Hercules four times a day, but then the chemo I was on was so strong that, by the time the last episode came on I'd have forgotten I'd seen it at 10 that morning, and enjoyed it all over again in a happy, chemically-induced stupor.

But there's fans and then there's fans. Behold, the horror that is Working Out Your Own Salvation With Xena: Warrior Princess Or, The Renewing of Ego Ideals in Syndication

Introduction (01-05)
A Trojan Horse Opera (06-13)
The Iliad and Theodicy (14-19)
Xena, the Bezerker (20-29)
If You Killed Your Friends and Family, Who Would Bring You Casseroles? (30-31)
Humanizing the Enemy (32-38)
Working Out Your Own Salvation (39-41)
Notes
Bibliography
Biography