Last fall I organized a vidshow at the Sirens Conference in Englewood, Colorado. I swore I'd post the playlist, and then I went to Belgium and Germany and when I came back reality blew up in our faces.

So, at long last, the vid playlist and panel description. The theme last year was Lovers, which informed my choice of vids.

Vidding comes to Sirens! This presentation and roundtable discussion will briefly introduce the practice of vidding (aka fanvids or songvids) by showing about a dozen vids, ranging from classics to book vids to vids related to this year’s Sirens theme. After watching the vids, we’ll have a short combined discussion and Q&A about the vids, vidding in general, and the fannish love that goes into them.

Playlist

1. Discord Days (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic) by mmmandarinorange
2. Clear the Area (The X-Files) by astarte
3. Hurricane (Battlestar Galactica/Farscape) by laurashapiro
4. Blank Space (Doctor Who) by purplefringe and such_heights
5. Republic City (The Legend of Korra)by beccatoria
6. You & I Sail (Only Lovers Left Alive) by violace 
7. Keep The Streets Empty For Me (Twilight) by chaila
8. All of Me (due South) by kuwdora 
9. Carry Your Throne (Captive Prince) by Rhea314
10. Sky Is Open (Ms Marvel/Avengers) by Garrideb (garrideb)
11. When Brakes Get Wet (Code Name Verity) by thatfangirl
12. I'm Your Man (Multi) by Charmax (charmax)
13. Holding Out for a Hero (Wonder Woman) by chaila 
14. Hold Me (Håll Om Mig) (Princess Tutu) by Marisa Panaccio

It's been a whirlwind six weeks of moving continents and coasts, and I'm very behind on updates.

My article "Record of Dying Days: The Alternate History of Ôoku" was published in Mechademia 10 in November, and the BCNM very kindly put out a short blurb about it. You can see a photo of yours truly with one of my author copies. On the topic of Mechademia, the tenth volume is the last of the original series, and the fifth one that I worked on as the editorial assistant/general citations dogsbody. I want to take the time now to publicly thank Frenchy Lunning, Wendy Goldberg, Christopher Bolton, and Tom Lamarre for their giving me the job, their advice and support, and their general friendship and camaraderie. I had the time of my life, and it was a true privilege.

Speaking of Mechademia, I'll be traveling to Tokyo next month to give a talk drawing on materials from the third chapter of my in-progress manuscript at the Mechademia Conference next month, "Women and Comics: Reconsidering the ‘Origins’ of Shojo Manga in the Postwar.” From there I'll go immediately to Seattle to give the same talk to a different crowd at the Popular Culture Association annual meeting, in the comics arts track. I had a wonderful time when I last presented at the PCA in 2009, and I'm very much looking forward to both conferences. See you there, I hope!

I'm very happy to say that I'll be presenting a paper called "Women in Comics: Reconsidering the Origins of Shojo Manga in the Postwar" at the 2016 national conference of the Popular Culture Association in Seattle next March. This presentation will draw on the in-progress third chapter of my dissertation and will be my first chance to take the material out for a spin.

PCA is one of the most enjoyable academic conferences I've been to, and after a seven-year absence I'm looking forward to going back. Even better, my paper is part of panels on manga organized by my colleague James Welker and staffed with some pretty awesome people including Patrick Galbraith and Sharalyn Orbaugh. I hope to see you there!

I'm really looking forward to returning to the Sirens Conference this year. Sirens has been one of my favorite cons since I first attended in 2010, and I'm very happy to say that I'll be on a panel at this one, the theme of which (Revolutionaries) is very close to my heart: 


I'll also be hosting a Books & Breakfast discussion on Laurie J. Marks' novel Fire Logic, which I read and loved earlier this year. You can still register to join us in Denver!

And in the meantime, I have a booklist up on the Sirens blog, Five Fantasies of the Roaring Twenties from the New Gilded Age. (See, I did pay attention when I was a reader for American history!)

Well, the cat's out of the bag; my friend s.e. smith and I are co-chairing Wiscon 40 in 2016, the 40th iteration of the world's leading science fiction convention held in Madison, WI every Memorial Day weekend.

We'd love to see you there, but in the meantime, we're looking for your nominations for Guests of Honor, as well as general ideas and suggestions, before 5 January 2015.

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!

I'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.

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!

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.

The 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!