KONAN UNIVERSITY (KOBE, JAPAN)

29-30th June 2013

Exporting young Japan: Between text and image

This is the first of what we hope will be a long series of workshops assembling researchers from different fields and with a wide range of interests. This interdisciplinary workshop seeks to explore the dynamic relations between Japan and Europe through the specific angle of the exportation of visual and textual representations of Japanese youth.

What do the Japanese students depicted in manga and the Sweden students who read them have in common? What is the point to hold an exhibition about Japanese children’s books in Paris? How does the story of the young Chieko Wataya fit into the international multi-story plot of the movie Babel? Do Japanese and French girls identify similarly with Lady Oscar? Those are only a few of the many questions that could be explore during this workshop.

Texts and Images, in all their forms, have permeated all societies. From the classical texts to text messaging; from traditional painting to contemporary photography; as well as through mixed forms, like advertisements who combine both text and image, they are omnipresent. Although the intensification of such exports is a recent phenomenon, and so this workshop will focus on late twentieth and twenty-first centuries; we will also consider possible submissions for earlier exchanges that could have mapped the field for the European interest in contemporary Japanese youth and youth culture.

This workshop, in its ‘mutual’ perspective will consider:

texts and images of and about Japanese youth imported in Europe
how the concept of ‘Japanese youth’ is integrated into European creations

Our concern is then with the exportation of both goods and ideas. We encourage papers that will consider the processes and motivations of such exportations, their reception in Europe, as well as the analysis of the supports exported (texts and/or images).

During the workshop we aim to answer to a manifold of questions about, among other subjects, cultural perceptions, youth culture, cultural importation and appropriation. More specifically we will consider what aspects of Japanese youth culture have been exported, by whom, why and how they have been received.

This inter-disciplinary workshop is open to both postgraduates and academics at any stage of their career, seeking to examine the imported perception of Japanese youth and the importation of youth-oriented goods.

DEADLINE

300 word abstracts should be submitted by 13th April 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by 1st June 2013. Please note that the presentations should be of around 20 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of exchanges among the participants.

300 word abstracts should be submitted to the following address: mutualimages@gmail.com

WRITING RECOMMENDATIONS

Abstracts should be in Word format with the following information and in this order: a) title of abstract, b) body of abstract, c) up to 10 key words, d) author(s), e) affiliation, f) email address.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline).

E-mails should be entitled: YOUTH2013 Abstract Submission.

All abstracts will be anonymously reviewed by a jury of specialists. Authors will be notified via email on the results of the review by 31th April 2013.

We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal. We suggest, then, to resend it.

Joint Organising Chairs:

Aurore Montoya, University of the West of England, UK

Yukio Konishi, Konan University, Japan

Danesin Maxime, Université de Tours, France