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About the Conference The Visualizing Cultures project and the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University are pleased to announce an academic conference focused on the relationship between visual imagery and social change in modern Asia entitled, "Visualizing Global Asia at the Turn of the 20th Century." This will be one of the first academic conferences devoted to "image-driven scholarship" and teaching about Asia in the modern world. We have selected scholars of history, art history, history of photography, and history of technology specializing in China, Korea, Japan, United States, Europe and the Philippines to discuss how to integrate visual and textual media in research and teaching, using to the fullest the opportunities presented by the new technologies and the use of the internet as a publishing platform.

In French: Announcement of a new study of manga readers in France, which has been entrusted to the Humanities Department of the Ecole Normale Supérieure of Lyon and the consulting company Tosca Consultants by the Book National Centre. The fieldwork will take place during the coming up Angoulême Comic Festival, which has been including a whole section devoted to manga for several years. If you are in France January 29-February 1, then, try to attend it. I believe it is worthwhile.

The Ankama Group has announced their plans to move deeper into comics publishing, specifically manga publishing, with an initiative to kick off January 2011. Ankama, the Roubaix, France-based developer and publisher of comics, games, and cartoons in the DOFUS and Wakfu universes, has always maintained a sensitive if not sentimental connection to the visual and narrative disposition of manga artwork. Now, the group will put their passions for underground Japanese comics and art to healthy use by publishing a manga anthology, Akiba. The monthly collection presently aims to print the works of young or new Japanese manga-ka for consumption by French-speaking comics enthusiasts.

"Ten years ago, the first SGMS had to be delayed because of the tragic event of 9/11, but two months later, seven academics from a variety of disciplines spoke on manga and anime to a crowd of 150 eager fans, academics, and students from junior high to college-aged. Since then, on the last weekend of every September, the expanding community of SGMS artists, actors, teachers, and students have gotten together to celebrate manga, anime and Japanese popular culture. Join us for the SGMS Masquerade Bash on Friday night with the Full Fashion Panic Fashion Show, music, food and costumed frivolities will prevail! Even the guests will be in costume! On Saturday and Sunday, there will be talks by guests Marc Hairston, Crispin Freeman, Thomas LaMarre, Christopher Bolton, Gilles Poitras and Frenchy Lunning. Classes in manga creation by Robert Ten Pas and Dennis Lo, Lolita Fashion creation by Samantha Rei, and more will be held. Watch for the announcement of our VERY SPECIAL GUEST soon!"

"'BL' (Boys' Love), a genre of male homosexual narratives (consisting of manga, novels, animations, games, films, and so forth) written by and for women, has recently been acknowledged, by Japanese and non-Japanese scholars alike, as a significant component of Japanese popular culture. The aesthetic and style of Japanese BL have also been assumed, deployed and transformed by female fans transnationally. The current thrust of transnational BL practices raises a number of important issues relating to socio/cultural constructs of BL localization and globalization. Scholarly endeavors in relation to BL can be enriched by further research concerning the activities of transnational BL fans, fan communities, fandom, and the production of fan fiction. Most previous BL fan studies have remained circumscribed to Japan and North America. Therefore, in order to further develop transnational BL fan studies, we are seeking contributors who are engaged in the exploration of non-Japanese and non-North American contexts (e.g. Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, Africa, and others). Transnational BL fan studies may also be incorporated into the broader socio/political critical frameworks offered by studies in economics, gender/sexuality, race/class, and other areas. "

For those who are studying fandom and Boy's Love, this might be an opportunity to share your researches!

MP journal seeks submissions that explore the ways Women/Femininity/Female agency are depicted in visual media such as video games, television, film, animation (anime), comic books, graphic novels, or any other visual depictions.