Donnerstag, 25. Mrz 2021, 18:30 - 20:00 iCal

u:japan lectures #4 Potentials of Dōjinshi Culture

Transultural Potentials of dōjinshi Culture

A virtual u:japan lecture by Katharina Hülsmann (HHU Düsseldorf).

Seminarraum JAP 1
Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2, Tür 2.4, 1090 Wien

Hybrider Event (an einem physischen Ort und online)


ABSTRACT:

In this talk I will present findings of an ethnographic study of dōjinshi (amateur comics) culture that I conducted for my PhD thesis. Dōjinshi is a term that is used to describe subcultural publications in Japan that are usually self-published and exchanged at specialised events. Most of the works exchanged at these gatherings make use of scenarios and characters from commercially published media, such as manga, anime, games, movies or television series and can be classified as fan works, poaching from media franchises and offering a vehicle for creative expression. What sets these works apart from fannish forms of expression, like fan fiction, in the anglophone sphere, is, that they are mainly being exchanged in printed form and not digitally over the internet. The fan artists thus utilise a robust infrastructure to produce and exchange their works with like-minded fans.

I will illustrate how Japanese dōjinshi artists produce cultural capital and social capital within their communities and how they navigate conflicts with outsiders, such as media right holders, and within their own community. For my field study, I focussed on Japanese dōjinshi artists who produce fan works based on western entertainment media franchises, such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. One of the focus points of my study was to trace the potentials for transcultural spreading of Japanese fan works and fannish exchange within local and global fan communities. The talk thus aims to give a brief overview of how dōjinshi exchange and the local community functions, and then delves deeper into the examination of dōjinshi culture as a potentially transcultural phenomenon.

 

BIO:

Katharina Hülsmann is a PhD candidate at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany. She is co-editor of the German-language volume Japanische Populärkultur und Gender [Japanese Popular Culture and Gender] (2016). In 2017 she conducted field work supported by a PhD grant from the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo (DIJ). Her research interests include representations of gender in popular culture and fannish works, fan/producer relationships in the digital age, comics studies, as well as transcultural dynamics of fandom.

 

Zur Webseite der Veranstaltung


Veranstalter

Department of East Asian Studies - Japanese Studies & Austria-Japan Study Group for Humanities, Social Sciences and Art (Akademischer Arbeitskreis Japan, AAJ)


Kontakt

Florian Purkarthofer
Department of East Asian Studies
Japanologie
+43-1-4277-43814
florian.purkarthofer@univie.ac.at