Preliminary Program Schedule

ALL ATTENDEES MUST REGISTER HERE. The registration fee is $55 USD.

8:00-8:30 Registration/Sign-in 

8:30-9:00 Welcome/Opening Remarks 

9:00-10:00 Keynote Address

Koichi Iwabuchi (Monash University) 

10:00-10:20 BREAK 

10:20-11:30 Parallel Panel Sessions 1

1.1 What We Live For: Women, Expression, and Empowerment in Japanese Fan Cultures

Organizer and Moderator: Adrienne Johnson

-“Band Girls” by Default: Destabilizing Gendered Norms in Visual Kei Fandom, Adrienne Johnson (University of Tokyo, Japan)

-The Fan-Shufu: Hong Kong Star Fans in/and the Home, Lori Hitchcock Morimoto (USA)

-Sex Sells: Fandom and the Eroticization of Cosplay, Lucy Glasspool (University of Tokyo, Japan)

-My Bias, Our Bias, Not Their Bias: K-Pop Multi-Fandom Spaces in Tokyo, Miranda Larsen (University of Tokyo, Japan)

-Attracting the Female Audience through the 2.5 Dimensional Musical, Kania Arini Sukotjo (National University of Singapore, Singapore)

1.2 Methodologies of Cultural Power

Moderator: Marco Pellitteri

-Measuring Cool Japan: The Influence of Cultural Richness and Selection of Cultural Information on Cross-cultural Attitudes and Stereotypes, Emma M. Fete (The Ohio State University, USA)

-“Cool” Japanese Robots as Cultural Power Vessels and Boundary Objects, Roger Andre Søraa (Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology, Norway)

-“Why hasn't Japan banned child-porn comics?”: An Investigation into the Socio-legal Attitudes towards Yaoi Manga, Simon Turner (Chulalongkorn University, Thailand)

-Measuring Soft Power from the Recipient Context: Japanese Popular Culture Consumption and Structure-based Interpretation of Soft Power, Alleson II Decena Villota (University of the Philippines, Philippines)

1.3 Image/Text

Moderator: Herb L. Fondevilla

-Video Game Translation and the Negotiation of Meaning between Languages, Amy Dawson-Andoh (University of Michigan, USA)

-Sexy Mulattas and Amelias: An Intersectional Analysis of Representations of Brazilian Women in Anime, Moana Luri de Almeida (University of Denver, USA)

-The Power to be Cool: Accumulating Alternative Knowledge on Japanese Fashion, Lisander Martínez Oliver (University of Tsukuba, Japan)

-Comparative Analysis of Historical and Animated Images of Japan: Perceptions of Selected Filipino University Students, Joanna Luisa Buenaflor Obispo (San Beda College Alabang, Philippines)

11:30-11:50 BREAK 

11:50-1:00 Parallel Panel Sessions 2

2.1 Audience Studies, Otaku, and Fan Cultures

Moderator: Lori Morimoto

-Nihon ga suki: Otaku Identity and Media Representation of This Phenomenon in Brazil, Mayara Araujo (State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

-Split Standpoints: A Study between the Japanese-International Fandom Relationship Concerning the Feminism of Magical Girl Anime, Erika J. Garbanzos (University of Asia and the Pacific, Philippines)

-The Legends of Zelda: Transnational Fan Challenges to Video Game Narratives, Kathryn Hemmann (George Mason University, USA)

-Cosplay/Gothic: Reflections on Animecon/Finncon 2008, Mario G. Rodriguez (Stetson University, USA)

2.2 Institutionalization and Nostalgia

Moderator: Erika Garbanzos

-Selling Nostalgia: Japanese Pop Culture on Philippine Television, Herb L. Fondevilla (University of Tsukuba, Japan)

-Classically J-Pop: When Classical Music and J-Pop Collide in Music for Anime, Heike Hoffer (The Ohio State University, USA)

-Murakami Haruki as Literary Export: Politics, Popularity, and the Positionality of Japan’s Best-

Selling Author, Tiffany Hong (Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan)

-Cool Japan(ese) Cinema and the Institutional Power of Film Criticism, Jose Montaño (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain)

-Communicating Silents to an International Audience: Woman Benshi Sawato Midori, Kyoko Omori (Hamilton College, USA)

1:00-2:30 LUNCH 

2:30-3:40 Parallel Panel Sessions 3

3.1 Discontented Japanization

Moderator: Casey Brienza

-A Japanese-Brazilian Asiacentricity: Challenging U.S.-centrism Outside the U.S., Moana Luri de Almeida (University of Denver, USA)

-Golden Hair and Starry Eyes: Revisiting “Mukokuseki” Character Design in Contemporary Japanese Cartoons, Beáta Pusztai (Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary)

-Cool Japan as Creative Industries: Some Contradictions, Shinji Oyama (Ritsumeikan University, Japan)

-“In ten years kids will know nothing about anime and Japan”: Framing the Progressive Vanishing of Japanese Animation from the European Contexts as a Big Issue for the Cultural and Economic Goals of Cool Japan, Marco Pellitteri (Kobe University, Japan)

3.2 The Living Popular

Moderator: Lori Morimoto

-Cool but Not Sexy: “Cool Japan” and Demographic Crisis, Erika R. Alpert (Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan)

-Online Social Networking Among Japanese Millennials: A Cultural Space for Empowerment, Phyllis Bo-yuen Ngai (University of Montana, USA)

-Live Idol Community: Live Idols in Japanese Urban Life and their “Negotiation,” Keiko Takeda (University of Tokyo, Japan)

-Listening to Japan: Popular Music and the Everyday, Rafal Zaborowski (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK)

3:40-4:00 BREAK 

4:00-5:10 Parallel Panel Sessions 4

4.1 Digital Productions: Distribution, Piracy, and Globalization

Moderator: Casey Brienza

-Subtitle and Distribute: The Fandom of Anime and Policy Fansubber Mediation in Digital Networks, Krystal Cortez Luz Urbano (Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil)

-Exoticising the Bizarre or Making Meaning? Appropriating Japanese Television Show GIFS on Social Media, Tim Highfield (Queensland University of Technology, Australia)

-Repackaging Japanese Culture: The Digitalization of Folktales in the Pokémon Franchise, Erika Ann Sumilang-Engracia (University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines)

-It’s Now Cool to Share: Japanese Youths and Their Changing Relations to Video Sharing Sites, Toshie Takahashi (Waseda University, Japan)

4.2 Localization, Adaptation, and Hybridization

Moderator: Marco Pellitteri

-Moon Prism Power! Censorship as Adaptation in the Case of Sailor Moon, Samantha Close (University of Southern California, USA)

-Wrong Time, Right Place? Revisiting the Film Daughter of the Nile and the Manga Series Crest of the Royal Family, Ping-hao Chen (National Central University, Taiwan) and Yu-ling Kung (University of Canterbury, New Zealand)

-Somewhere in Between: Analyzing the Hybridization of Japanese Popular Music, Lara Danielle Cartujano (University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines)

-Free Love: Japanese Women’s Games, Fan Translations, Gendered Otaku and Game Cultures and the Politics of Game Localization, Sarah Christina Ganzon (Concordia University, Canada)

-Konnichiwa Amigo! A Study of the Arrival of Anime and Manga in Mexico and the Role of Local Actors in Their Dissemination and Popularization, Edgar Santiago Peláez Mazariegos (Waseda University, Japan)

5:10-5:30 BREAK

5:30-7:00 Reception and New Books Spotlight

Call for Papers Communicating with Cool Japan ICA16 Preconference

ICA16 Preconference Communicating with Cool Japan: New International Perspectives on Japanese Popular Culture

Date: Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Location: Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

Sponsors: ERIC; Pop Comm; Goldsmiths, University of London; Waseda University

Keynote Speaker: Koichi Iwabuchi (Monash University) 

More children around the world recognize Mario than they do Mickey Mouse, and Japanese popular culture, especially anime, manga, music, games, television, film, and street fashion, is among the most distinct and recognizable of any in the world. During a time of domestic economic malaise, these products of these creative industries have become increasingly important cultural exports. There is both intra-Asian cultural flow (e.g. between Japan and Korea), as well as “counter-flow” from East to West. Japan continues to be a subject of Orientalization, yet at the same time, Japan is one of the most well-developed, wealthy nations in its region, with its own history of colonialism.

This year’s International Communication Association Annual Conference theme is “Communicating with Power,” and it implies both speaking to the powerful and speech that is powerful in and of itself. Both are salient here because “Cool Japan” is a governmental catchphrase, and to a postcolonial country like Japan, which has renounced the “hard” military power of warmongering and violence, the “soft power” of cultural diplomacy and the global recognition of its powerhouse popular culture are especially important. What role should Japanese popular culture play on the twenty-first century international stage? What sorts of power are or ought to be vested in cultural producers? What can these media tell us about ourselves—and others? And what sorts of empowerment does Japanese popular culture make possible for consumers? We invite scholars who would explore some of the answers to these questions—as well as provide new ones—in order to better understand, ultimately, what it means to communicate with Cool Japan.

Papers and panels on topics related to any area of Japanese popular culture will be considered, including but not limited to:

-production processes and/or cultural workers 

-political economy (including the role of the state and markets) 

-media/cultural content (e.g. of anime, manga, fashion, videogames, film, music, television, etc.) 

-the Internet, social/online media, cellular phones, or other technology 

-uses of Japanese popular culture 

-globalization or diaspora 

-cultural policy/diplomacy

-consumption or media effects 

-identity and the self

-otaku and fandom

Submissions from graduate students and junior scholars are especially welcome. 

How to Submit: 

We will accept both individual abstract submissions and fully-constituted panel submissions (of 4-5 participants).

Individual paper submissions should include: 

-Title, name and affiliation, and email address of author(s). 

-Abstract of 150-200 words that discusses the problem, research, methods and relevance. 

-Use Microsoft Office or PDF format.

Panel proposal submissions should include:

-Title of panel and 100-word rationale.

-Titles, names and affiliations, and email addresses of panelists. 

-Abstracts of 150-200 words for each presentation that discusses the problem, research, methods and relevance. 

-Use Microsoft Office or PDF format.

Send all submissions to icacooljapan@gmail.com. Please write “Communicating with Cool Japan Preconference” in the subject line.

  

Submission deadline is extended to February 15, 2016. 

Notification of acceptance will occur sometime in late February.

Please contact Casey Brienza (casey.brienza.1@city.ac.uk) or Anamik Saha (a.saha@gold.ac.uk) with any inquiries.