Information on the conference on Stockholm University’s website
6 September – 8 September 2018 at Stockholm University.
![](https://usercontent.one/wp/www.jberndt.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/sweden-japan-150.jpg)
In 2018 Sweden and Japan celebrate the 150th anniversary of diplomatic relations. This occasion provides an exceptional opportunity to reconceptualize the study of Japanese culture in a way which meets the requirements of an increasingly networked and digitalized world. Our conference seeks to do that with a Media Studies approach that entwines the technological, social and aesthetic, and acknowledges the importance of everyday practices by non-elite actors. The objective is to revisit the potential and limitations of a privileged academic focus on “area,” in the sense of geopolitics (Japan) as well as subject matter (comics/manga), and to place greater emphasis on mediation in the broadest sense, including ways of how to operate Japan-related expertise as contemporary humanities-based research.
The conference focuses on three aspects:
(1) “Japan as Mangaesque,” related to the highly mediatized nature of contemporary Japanese culture, i.e. its media ecology, highlighting global and local mediations rather than national branding;
(2) “Manga Pedagogy,” applying the mediatic perspective to methodologies of Manga Studies within university programs and academic scholarship; and
(3) “Manga as Comics,” foregrounding media specifity in relation to comics and thereby extending the scope of Manga Studies beyond that of a primarily Japan-related field.
Proceedings
Proceedings available online:
https://orientaliskastudier.se/okategoriserade-en/156/