I'm in Minneapolis for the Mechademia Conference (formerly SGMS) and I'll be speaking tomorrow afternoon about my summer research in the Fred Patten Collection of the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction at UC Riverside. Takemoto Novala is also going to debut his first solo collection at the fashion show tomorrow night; tickets are still available for the fashion show and the conference. Join us!
Wikimania 2014 and LonCon 3
Aug. 8th, 2014 12:23I'm in London for Wikimania 2014 and for Worldcon 2014, aka LonCon 3.
I'm around at Wikimania, which is excellent so far, and I'll be at the OTW tent in the Exhibits Hall most days. (I've tried to find mention of this in the programme, with no luck so far.) I'm also moderating the following panel on Sunday 17 August:
I hope to see you here, or there!
I'm around at Wikimania, which is excellent so far, and I'll be at the OTW tent in the Exhibits Hall most days. (I've tried to find mention of this in the programme, with no luck so far.) I'm also moderating the following panel on Sunday 17 August:
Representation, Whitewashing, and Internationalism in Fandom
Capital Suite 13 (Level 3), 12pm - 1:30pm
Tags: Transformative Fandom, Social Issues, Race, Ethnicity, Internationalism
Zen Cho, Mark Oshiro, Eylul Dogruel, Russell Smith, Andrea Horbinski
Fandoms can provide positive spaces for engagement with and education about representing people of color, for example the negative impact of “whitewashing” (see racebending.com). In recent years, there's been a more visible push by fandom for representation that more accurately reflects the community as a whole. But the issue itself is a complex one: How can the SF/F community challenge their perceptions of representation while also taking into account how concepts including “race” and “people of colour” vary in an international context? How can fandom avoid stereotyping and exclusion? What sort of models work in a general sense, but should not be applied to non-Western nations? Join our panelists in a challenging and lively conversation about these issues.
Capital Suite 13 (Level 3), 12pm - 1:30pm
Tags: Transformative Fandom, Social Issues, Race, Ethnicity, Internationalism
Zen Cho, Mark Oshiro, Eylul Dogruel, Russell Smith, Andrea Horbinski
Fandoms can provide positive spaces for engagement with and education about representing people of color, for example the negative impact of “whitewashing” (see racebending.com). In recent years, there's been a more visible push by fandom for representation that more accurately reflects the community as a whole. But the issue itself is a complex one: How can the SF/F community challenge their perceptions of representation while also taking into account how concepts including “race” and “people of colour” vary in an international context? How can fandom avoid stereotyping and exclusion? What sort of models work in a general sense, but should not be applied to non-Western nations? Join our panelists in a challenging and lively conversation about these issues.
I hope to see you here, or there!
Update from Tokyo
Jul. 16th, 2014 16:51I'm happy to report that the Kadokawa Summer Program is pretty cool so far. I've also finally had time to read this article by Greg Hardesty in the Los Angeles Register, "Anime Expo 2014: Fun event gets all scholarly," which is a nice profile of the academic track at AX that also happens to quote me. It's good to see thoughtful coverage of anime, manga, and fandom in the media; it's a welcome change from earlier decades, as my research in the Fred Patten collection made clear.
Anime Expo 2014
Jul. 8th, 2014 17:06This is entirely a postscript, since I have been ridiculously busy the past few months--I was in Tokyo for 10 days last month, and I'll be heading back for another two weeks this Saturday for the Kadokawa Media Mix Summer Program at the University of Tokyo, which is quite exciting.
In the meantime, however, last weekend I had the pleasure of speaking the academic/educational track of AnimeExpo, which was even more enjoyable than 2012. I was on the "Japanese Society and Japan's History" panel, and I spoke about "Record of Dying Days: The Alternate History of Ooku."
Thanks to MIkhail Koulikov for organizing the programming, to AX for hosting, and to everyone who attended!
In the meantime, however, last weekend I had the pleasure of speaking the academic/educational track of AnimeExpo, which was even more enjoyable than 2012. I was on the "Japanese Society and Japan's History" panel, and I spoke about "Record of Dying Days: The Alternate History of Ooku."
Thanks to MIkhail Koulikov for organizing the programming, to AX for hosting, and to everyone who attended!
I'll be at WisCon 38 in Madison, Wisconsin, this weekend. I'm on two panels:
Anime in Literature, Literature in Anime | Sun, 1:00–2:15 pm | Caucus
Moderator: Andrea Horbinski; Emily Horner, Kelly Peterson, Vernieda
The works of writers such as N.K. Jemisin and Alaya Dawn Johnson show a strong influence from anime, and anime such as Haibane Renmei have showed the influence of writers such as Haruki Murakami, while Studio Ghibli made a very famous, and very controversial, adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle. Let's talk about SFF and anime, and how each is changing the other. What aspects of anime could SFF learn from?
Mecha Tropes and Subversions Thereof | participant | Mon, 10:00–11:15 am | Caucus
Moderator: Susan Ramirez; ANONYMOUS, Andrea Horbinski, Shira Lipkin, Oyceter
In a year where the Hugo-nominated Pacific Rim arguably brought mechas into the mainstream, what are our favorite and least favorite mecha tropes? And what are series that take on these tropes, either with full enthusiasm or with interesting twists? Are intensely emotional plots in the very DNA of mecha stories, or are they secondary? Will audiences ever tire of giant robots punching monsters in the face?
See you there!
Anime in Literature, Literature in Anime | Sun, 1:00–2:15 pm | Caucus
Moderator: Andrea Horbinski; Emily Horner, Kelly Peterson, Vernieda
The works of writers such as N.K. Jemisin and Alaya Dawn Johnson show a strong influence from anime, and anime such as Haibane Renmei have showed the influence of writers such as Haruki Murakami, while Studio Ghibli made a very famous, and very controversial, adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle. Let's talk about SFF and anime, and how each is changing the other. What aspects of anime could SFF learn from?
Mecha Tropes and Subversions Thereof | participant | Mon, 10:00–11:15 am | Caucus
Moderator: Susan Ramirez; ANONYMOUS, Andrea Horbinski, Shira Lipkin, Oyceter
In a year where the Hugo-nominated Pacific Rim arguably brought mechas into the mainstream, what are our favorite and least favorite mecha tropes? And what are series that take on these tropes, either with full enthusiasm or with interesting twists? Are intensely emotional plots in the very DNA of mecha stories, or are they secondary? Will audiences ever tire of giant robots punching monsters in the face?
See you there!
HackFSM Hooray!
Apr. 21st, 2014 18:39I haven't had time to mention this until now, but HackFSM ended on April 12, and it was a smashing success! I think it's fair to say that all the organizers, including myself, were blown away by the variety and quality of the entries we received, and that we're very hopeful that this can be a model for many more successful hackathons at Berkeley.
Some links:
Some links:
I'm participating in the Day of DH 2014, and you can find my first blog post of the day on my blog on the site: This Is What a Digital Humanist Looks Like.
OTW meetup in Berkeley
Oct. 28th, 2013 00:03The OTW is hosting a meetup next Sunday, November 3, at 2631 Fulton Street in Berkeley! More details at the link, including an Eventbrite RSVP.
I'll be there, and I hope you can come too!
I'll be there, and I hope you can come too!
Ex post facto: Sirens 2013
Oct. 17th, 2013 21:24I spent the past weekend in Stevenson, Washington at the Sirens conference with a group of wonderful people discussing women in fantasy literature--readers, writers, and characters. This was my fourth time attending Sirens, and it's a truly amazing time. I hope you'll think about attending next year! I doubt I'll be able to be there due to the pressure of dissertation research, but I plan to return as soon as I can.
I actually moderated a panel at Sirens this year:
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rachelmanija has posted her notes from the panel. I thought it went really well, and that we could easily have spent another hour talking; thanks so much to my fellow panelists and to our wonderful audience!
I actually moderated a panel at Sirens this year:
Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves: Women in History and in Fantasy and YA
Andrea Horbinski, Robin LaFevers, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, Gillian Chisom, Kate Elliott
Women have played a variety of crucial roles in societies around the world since the beginning of recorded history, but popular understandings of those roles don’t always match historical reality. At the same time, there have been many women throughout history who transgressed social boundaries. How have folktales, fantasy, and young adult books depicted and reflected women in history? What can we learn about the past and about our own current moment from these depictions? This panel will explore these questions and many more.
rachelmanija has posted her notes from the panel. I thought it went really well, and that we could easily have spent another hour talking; thanks so much to my fellow panelists and to our wonderful audience!
