Women's Manga Beyond Japan:
Contemporary Comics as Cultural Crossroads in Asia

Date: 21 – 23 February, 2011
Venue: Seminar Room A & B, AS7,
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore
Free Admission (Registration required)

ORGANIZERS:
Department of Japanese Studies, NUS
Women's MANGA Research Project

SPONSORS:
Japan Foundation
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Japan)
Scientific Research Fund*

In the last two decades, manga has become a global medium, a transcultural phenomenon which has spread all over the world. Manga has generated massive international interest in part due to the gender-related practices and discourses it gives rise to. While American and Franco-Belgian productions were mainly targeted at male readers, manga hold an equal appeal to girls and women, both as creators and readers. Manga for girls and women occupy a particular position: the manga style becomes a favorite means of young women's expression worldwide, and women dominate the realm of fan creations recently; furthermore, girls' and women's comics contribute significantly to the exploration of gender and sexualities, including but not limited to heterosexual femininity.

This symposium will feature a unique gathering of comics scholars and comics artists in examining the onging conceptualization of of manga, which has perhaps proved more inspiring to female readers and authors than any previous form of comics anywhere in the world. The symposium will open with a keynote speech from John. A. Lent, who is renowed as a forerunner in comics scholarship, and presentations at the symposium will focus on female artists and their works in Asia from both scholarly and artistic perspectives. We hope our international and transcultural approach to explore common scholarly interests related to sequential art in general and manga in particular will suggest likely points of common interest for various cultures and readers far beyond Japan.

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Click here for Abstracts

Registration
To register, please email your name, affiliated institutions (if any), dates/panels you would like to attend and contact details to: sheilatang@nus.edu.sg .

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) No. 21320044 “Research in Women's Manga: Subjectivity, Globalization, and the Possibilities for Expression”