Fwd: Call for contributions

[Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow]

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From: Dr Mark McLelland <m.mclelland at mailbox.uq.edu.au>

JAPANESE SUBCULTURES ON THE INTERNET

Edited by Nanette Gottlieb and Mark McLelland

We seek proposals for papers to be included in a book provisionally
entitled Japanese Subcultures on the Internet. The volume seeks to explore
whether and in what ways the emergence of the Internet as an inter- and
intracultural communications medium has affected the interaction between
members within diverse subculture and minority groups in Japan. It will
include both academic analyses and reports from subculture and
minority-group members themselves. The book aims to describe the wide
variety of different people, communities, lifestyles, practices and ideas
that exist throughout Japanese society with a particular focus on how the
Internet has facilitated group formation and identity development.

General questions to be explored in the book include:

What role has the Internet played in the (re)organisation of 'traditional'
minority groups in Japan such as the Ainu, burakumin, Korean-Japanese,
shogaisha and hibakusha?

How has the Internet facilitated community awareness among recently
emergent groups such as feminists, lesbians and gays and transgender
people?

How has the Internet affected established subcultural groups such as the
amateur manga movement (dojinshi), hippies, New Age followers and new
religious movements?

Is the Internet in Japan an instrument of globalisation or is it being
used in specifically Japanese ways to suit local concerns and practices?



Core papers already proposed focus on:

Ainu identity

burakumin

Lesbian and women's groups

Transgender community

People with hearing disabilities

Lesbian and gay activism

Further submissions on the above or other minority groups or subcultures
are welcome.

Please send general enquiries or abstracts of up to 250 words to
m.mclelland at mailbox.uq.edu.au.



Timeline:

Closing date for core paper abstracts 1 December 2000

Closing date for paper submissions 1 December 2001

Publication at the end of 2002

About the editors:

Associate Professor Nanette Gottlieb is Head of the Asian Studies
Department at the University of Queensland. Her publications include
Word-Processing Technology in Japan (Curzon, 2000), Kanji Politics:
Language Policy and Japanese Script (Kegan Paul, 1995) and Language and
the Modern State: The Reform of Written Japanese (Routledge, 1991). She
has a book on discriminatory language in Japan forthcoming.

Dr Mark McLelland is a postdoctoral fellow in the Centre for Critical and
Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland. He is the author of Male
Homosexuality in Modern Japan: Cultural Myths and Social Realities
(Curzon, 2000) and has published articles on Japanese minority groups and
the Internet in Convergence and The Journal of Communication Inquiry. He
has a chapter on queer uses of the Internet in Japan forthcoming in Chris
Berry, Fran Martin and Audre Yue (eds) Mobile Cultures: New Media and
Queer Asia.

















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