WisCon panel schedule!

I'm thrilled to be attending WisCon 35, and I also have the privilege of moderating not one but two panels with a bunch of awesome people. To wit:


Looking Beyond the Gender Binary in Anime and Manga Sat, 4:00–5:15 pm Room 634
Moderator: Andrea Horbinski. Andrea Horbinski, Emily Horner, Johanna Eeva, Andy Smith, Oyceter

Sometimes, the media of manga and anime fail hard at handling gender. But sometimes they are amazing. In some series, people pass back and forth between genders (Sailor Moon), or have gender confusion (After School Nightmare). People also seem to cross-dress a lot more frequently than they do in Western SF/F media. Let's talk about examples in anime and manga that look beyond the gender binary in a meaningful way.


Fumi Yoshinaga's Ooku: The Inner Chambers Sun, 10:00–11:15 am Room 629
Moderator: Andrea Horbinski. Andrea Horbinski, Cynthia Gonsalves, Margaret McBride, Gregory G. H. Rihn, Mely (coffeeandink)

Since winning the 2009 Tiptree Award for the first two volumes of Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Fumi Yoshinaga's series has continued on through volume 5 and forges further into the alternate history in which a terrible plague affecting only men utterly changes medieval Japanese culture. Beautifully drawn, the story is a feast for science fiction readers whose sense of wonder is sparked equally by the gender themes, alternate history speculation, and the we're-not-in-Kansas-anymore vision of historical Japan. Yoshinaga's view of gender and power isn't a simple matter of women taking charge from men. What characteristics does Yoshinaga clearly think are gender-specific, no matter which gender is in power? What changes in this alternate history with the transfer of power?


See you in Madison!