In my paper I'll show how fact and fiction merge to a cultural concept of "Us Against Them." First I'll familiarize the audience with a condensed and applicable version of the New Historicism as practiced by Stephen Greenblatt et al. Using Stephen Greenblatt's concept of cultural poetics, or New Historicism, from the angle of an historian to explain both "literature" and "history", I'll show how certain events circulate their social energy in culture as well as in society, how a certain strand of history emerges through cultural negotiations.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, the threat of terrorism rose to an unknown high, emerging in the direct-response war in Afganistan and the inderect-response war in Iraq. Conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg argues that, in this constellation, Buffy and the Council of Watchers represent the USA and the U.N., respectively. Traditional concepts and morality values of religious-conservative politics mix with a perceived/constructed situation of deadly threat which lingers in the unknown and is exacted by ungodly enemies.