Japanese Transnational Fandoms Papers
The “Japanese Transnational Fandoms and Female Consumers” workshop at the University of Wollongong was full of fantastic papers, some of which will show up in issue 21 of Intersections and some of which may become a book — negotiations are apparently ongoing. Mark McLelland and Fran Martin organized the event and did a wonderful job.
I’ll add references to the BL-related papers to YaoiResearchWiki.Com in a few days. Until then, I’ll just list all the papers that were presented, in order of presentation. I’ve added links the authors’ universities in case you want to hunt any down to ask for copies of their presentations.
Thursday, July 3:
Yano, Christine: “Kitty Subversion: Turning Cute on Its Head”
Dasgupta, Romit: “Romancing Urban Modernity in Tokyo, Taipei and Shanghai: The Film About Love and the Shaping of a Discursive East-Asian Popular Culture”
Freedman, Alisa: “Train Man and the Gender Politics of Japanese Otaku Culture: The Rise of New Media, Nerd Heroes, Consumer Markets, and Fan Communities.”
Aoyama, Tomoko: “The Rise of Bishonen Fandom and the Decline of the HuMANities(?) in Japan”
Nagaike, Kazumi: “Representations of ‘Constructed Others’ and ‘Absent Others’ in Japanese BL Manga: Signs and the Consumption of Images of Foreigners
— Note: Dr. Nagaike performed a content analysis on 140 BL magazines in Japan, noting the various images of foreigners. I find this paper significant because these representations are now being imported into the West. How will these stereotypes affect Western readers? Will they be accepted uncritically? Will GloBL adopt them? There’s a research paper here for somebody….
Shen, Lien Fan: “Reflections after Ten Years: An Artist’s Perspective on Queer Manga in Taiwan”
— Note: Dr. Fen belonged to the first female dojinshi group in Taiwan and wrote the first lesbian-themed manga in Taiwan, I Will Be Your Paradise. Her talk was a fascinating peek into the internal and external pressures put on mangaka who created homosexually themed manga under a political regime that rejected and shunned homosexuality.
Jacobs, Katrien: “The Active One I Have Left at Home: Backstage Gatherings and Amateur Stories in Hong Kong”
— Note: A DVD movie presentation of three Hong Kong fan subcultures: ball-joint doll collectors, kigurumi cosplayers, and BL manga. I’d never heard of kigurumi before, so if you haven’t, either, here’s a short sample.
Friday, July 4:
Hjorth, Larissa: “GameGirls and PlayStations: A Case Study of Japan’s Position in Gaming Culture via Cosplayers in Melbourne”
Norris, Craig & Bainbridge, Jason: “Otakuwear and the Haraju2Girls: Madman, Female Consumers and Fandom”
Malone, Paul: “Homegrown Shojo Manga, Germany’s ‘Forty-Niners’ and Tentative Boys’ Love”
Pagliassotti, Dru: “Publishing Strategies for Adapting Boys’ Love to the West”
Martin, Fran: “BL in Taiwan: The Local Uses of Imaginative Transformation”
McLelland, Mark: “The International Yaoi Boys’ Love Fandom and the Regulation of ‘Virtual Child Pornography’”
Liu, Tina: “Boys’ Love in Girls’ Hands: A Tale of the Two Chinas”
Tong, Gin Chee: “Glocalising Boys’ Love for an Asian Audience”
drupagliassotti @ July 8, 2008