CFP: 2014 AX Anime and Manga Studies Symposium (May 1; July 3-6)

Call for Papers / Call for Speakers
2014 AX Anime and Manga Studies Symposium
July 3 - July 6
Anime Expo 2014
Los Angeles Convention Center (Los Angeles, CA)
www.anime-expo.org
Keynote Speaker: Prof. Marc Steinberg (Concordia University, Montreal, Canada)
Submission Deadline: May 1, 2014
Japanese animation (anime) and comics (manga) represent one of the major contributions that Japan has made to global visual and popular culture. Indeed, for many people, their first - and sometimes only - contact with Japanese culture at all is through Japanese visual culture.

The field of anime and manga studies is young, only about 30 year old, but extraordinarily vibrant.
It welcomes a wide range of interpretations and approaches, draws on different disciplines and methodologies, and can involve both academics, industry professionals, independent scholars, and fans/enthusiasts.

A major goal of the Anime and Manga Studies Symposium is to bring together speakers from diverse backgrounds, fields and areas to exchange ideas, explore new directions, and contribute to building a community of anime and manga studies. Uniquely, the Anime and Manga Symposium is an integral part of the schedule of Anime Expo, the largest gathering of fans of Japanese popular culture in the U.S. This will give speakers an opportunity to present their research and scholarship directly to public, non-academic audience, to interact with fans of anime and manga from around the world, and to becomeparticipants in a celebration and appreciation of Japanese popular culture. In turn, the Symposium also serves to introduce convention attendees to the ideas and practices of formal scholarship of Japanesevisual culture.

Submissions on a wide range of topics dealing with anime and manga will be considered. Possible areas to explore can include—but are not limited to:

• Critical studies of individual creators, directors and animators, especially in larger contexts such as anime/manga as a whole, animation, comics, Japanese literature/film, science fiction, war literature, etc.
• Close readings of particular works, with a focus on genre conventions and subversions and relationships to previous works in anime/manga and other media.
• Gender and Sexuality: Fan service and objectification, the male and female gaze, the interplay of male and female creators, producers, and audiences
• Age, class, race, ethnicity/nationality and other social differences
• Reflections on current social, political and ecological issues
• Responses to the world and to Japanese history: The 3.11 Tohoku Disaster, World War II, interactions between Japan and other countries
• The impact of new technologies (wireless communication, augmented reality, mobile computing) on storytelling in anime/manga
• The use of remix culture: Adaptation and interpretation of Eastern, Western and other literatures and visual media in Japanese popular culture
• Copyright, obscenity, and other legal issues
• Anime and manga as tools of globalization and agents of promoting Japanese culture
• The history and evolution of anime/manga fandom outside Japan: Fan practices and experiences—clubs, conventions, cosplay, fansites, fansubbing, anime music videos
• The future of anime/manga consumption – streaming, online comics, crowdsourcing, etc.
• Potentials for anime/manga as platforms for social change and anime/manga fans as actors of social change
• The ethics and challenges of presenting Japanese popular culture products around the world

The Symposium particularly welcomes presentations on newer/emerging works and creators.

Speakers are also welcome to submit proposals for roundtable discussions on these and related topics.

Potential roundtables can include:

• Differences in theoretical approaches to anime and manga
• Anime/manga fan practices and activities in different countries, cultures and regions
• New directions, new opportunities, and new challenges in thinking, writing, and teaching about anime/manga

The AX Anime and Manga Studies Symposium will be open to all AX attendees. Speakers are urged to consider subjects that will be of interest to general non-specialist audiences and do not require significant backgrounds in Asian Studies, media theory, literature, etc.

For consideration, please submit the title of your paper or panel, an abstract (300 words maximum) and a CV to mkoulikov@gmail.com

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: May 1, 2014

All submissions will be peer-reviewed.

All invited participants will be offered free admission to Anime Expo.

CFP: Anime and Manga Studies Symposium (May 20; July 1-4)

Call for Papers / Call for Speakers:
Anime Expo

Anime and Manga Studies Symposium
(July 1 – July 4, Los Angeles, CA)
DEADLINE: May 20, 2011

The continuing popularity of Japanese comics and animation outside Japan has been a topic of interest to scholars across a wide range of disciplines, fields and approaches. However, much of the English-language research and writing on anime and manga has taken place on an ad-hoc basis, and until recently, there has been relatively little sense of a persistent community of anime/manga scholars.

Capitalizing on the growing prominence of scholarly approaches to Japanese popular culture, Anime Expo, the largest and most popular gathering for fans of Japanese visual culture in the U.S. will be hosting a track of themed sessions exploring how anime and manga can have a place in scholarly discussion. AX 2011 will be held from July 1 to July 4 at the Los Angeles Convention Center (Los Angeles, CA).

The track will present a unique opportunity for scholars at all levels to share their research and thinking directly with a general, non-academic audience while also interacting with other academic speakers from across a range of disciplines. It will consist of three themed roundtable discussions and three sessions for individual papers.

Roundtable discussions

Roundtable session 1:
Theoretical perspectives on Japanese visual culture

The complex, complicated world of Japanese animation and comics yields itself to many different approaches. Fairly straight-forward close readings, modes of analysis based in particular schools of thought, examinations of the roles of authors and creators, producers, distributors and the global audience all have a part in anime and manga studies

• How do anime/manga studies fit into existing theoretical approaches to studying visual
  culture?
• What is the relationship between particular theoretical approaches and the kinds of questions that anime/manga scholars can ask?
• Are some modes of inquiry in anime/manga studies overused – and are there others that are underutilized?
• Does anime/manga studies in the U.S. differ markedly from how these topics are approached in Japan and elsewhere in the world?

Roundtable session 2:
Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli: Anime's contribution to world cinema

Hayao Miyazaki is likely the only anime creator to have achieved a measure of real worldwide recognition and acclaim. In many people’s minds, his films are essentially synonymous with Japanese animation as a whole. Not coincidentally, Miyazaki is also the anime director whose work has been examined the most thoroughly and intensively by Western film, media and animation scholars.

• Common themes, issues and tropes in the works of Hayao Miyazaki: Their meanings
  and purposes
• Why has Studio Ghibli achieved such an extraordinary degree of global success?
• Miyazaki and commentary on relationships between the natural and human worlds in contemporary Japan?
• “Anime because of, or in spite of Ghibli”: What is the relationship between Studio Ghibli and the rest of the Japanese animation industry?

Roundtable session 3:
Teaching, writing and thinking about anime/manga: New directions, new opportunities.

Japanese animation and comics have been common in American high school classes and college programs throughout the last decade, if not more. “Teaching” anime and manga has unique challenges, but also a potentially wide range of results and goals. For its own part, anime and manga studies is an emerging field that must win a place for itself in a disciplinary landscape that is already crowded with fields, directions, and approaches.

• How to introduce anime and manga into the classroom at all levels, from high school to graduate
• “Studying anime” vs. “anime studies”: Does the field need a label, and what does the
  label mean?
• Where does “anime studies” take place: Existing, new and prospective areas of research in Japanese visual culture?
• Where to next? The real and possible goals of scholarly approaches to Japanese visual culture

The topics listed under each of the roundtable session titles are suggested, not exhaustive, and other approaches and views are welcome!

Individual papers

Speakers are invited to submit proposals for individual 20-minute paper presentations on any topic related to Japanese comics and animation, the anime/manga industry both in Japan and worldwide, and the global anime and manga fandom.

Some of the possible themes and topics can include:

• Close readings of particular individual anime and manga texts
• Specific reasons for the global popularity of anime and manga
• Relationships between anime/manga and other Japanese film and literature
• Japanese animation and comics in historical perspective: anime and manga before Tezuka
• The role of the creator and director (and individual creators/directors) in the development of anime and manga
• Anime/manga promotion, marketing, international licensing and distribution, translation and sales
• The activities of anime/manga fans: Fanfiction, cosplay, anime music videos, website development, etc.
• A global conversation with Japanese popular culture – Western uses of anime and manga (Animatrix, Batman, Iron Man, Supernatural, etc.)
• Beyond anime and manga as we know them: Experimental and non-mainstream Japanese animation and comics
• Popular culture responds to reality: The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and future directions in Japanese visual culture

To participate in one of the panel discussions, or to present an individual paper, please contact Mikhail Koulikov [contact information follows] with your name, and CV. Please provide a brief, 250-word explanation of your viewpoint as a panelist or an abstract for your paper.

All entries must be received by May 18. All speakers will receive complimentary admission to Anime Expo.

- Mikhail Koulikov - mkoulikov@gmail.com

Producer, AX Anime and Manga Studies Symposium
Editor, Online Bibliography of Anime and Manga Research
Co-Moderator, Anime and Manga Research Circle Mailing List