[research] Speaking at Comics Worlds and the World of Comics: Scholarship on a Global Scale

[unjapanologist]

Originally published at Academic FFF. You can comment here or there.

Comics Worlds and the World of Comics: Scholarship on a Global Scale will take place from 18 to 20 December at the International Manga Museum in Kyoto. I'll be doing a short presentation in Japanese on the 18th on the topic of what exactly "global comics studies" might study. First, the aims of the conference:

In recent years, Comic Studies are seeing an upswing worldwide. Under the conditions of globalization and information society, the internationalization of comics as such, including a sort of comics revival in Europe and America as well as the transnational proliferation of manga, has come to be accompanied by an internationalization of the study of comics. Representative of this trend is the International Journal of Comic Art, founded in 1999 and edited by John Lent. Drawing upon previous research, the Kyoto conference intends to further international exchange. One of its aims is to broaden the perspective of Manga Studies within Japan. In this respect, exchange will be attempted not only with respect to the variety of regional comics cultures, but also to fields of research other than Manga Studies and, furthermore, theoretical endeavors. An equally important aim is to contribute to global comics scholarship, and thereby unfolding the potential of the Kyoto International Manga Museum opened in November 2006, as a facility accessible to Japanese and Non-Japanese researchers alike. The conference will begin this 'contribution' by focusing on whether it is possible to discuss comics beyond the scope of local comics cultures; in other words, whether a scholarly exchange about 'comics' in general can be established despite the fact that the specific works and languages the participants are familiar with differ. The Kyoto conference does not intend to highlight the cultural particularities of Japanese manga; rather, it foregrounds methodological issues which the study of manga may share with the study of other kinds of comics. It invites discussions about the definition of comics from aesthetic, stylistic and semiotic angles, while at the same time calling for the consideration of discourses related to modern society and culture. Regarding the latter, points of common interest could be the relations between nation-state and subcultures, male and female readerships, personal inclinations of fans and public references of traditional intellectuals, the everyday use of comics and its academic research, the role of comics in Europe/America and Asia etc.

I'll have fifteen minutes and talk about eeeeeverything in this mission statement! Pretty much. I started out intending to discuss exactly which kind of media are considered "comics" in this proposed field of "global comics studies", wanting to draw attention to dojinshi or other "non-traditional" comic-like media that are rather neglected by current comics studies. This is now snowballing into a wide-ranging critique of media and methodologies in comics scholarship, social responsibilities of comics scholarship, and how the field is in danger of repeating the mistakes of an academic system that not so long ago persisted in its claims that comics were just too low-brow to study. I'll be discussing whether open access and social media might offer a backbone for a truly global, relevant, and inclusive field of "comics studies". Since things are getting a bit too broad, I'm looking for one topic to tie it all together. Dojinshi will probably be best.

The presentation is taking shape here in this prezi and is a great load of gibberish right now. It'll make sense (and have Japanese added) in two weeks. A list of online resources and highlights that I'm using for the presentation can be found on Diigo with the tag presentation_cwwc.