Call for papers

[Eija Niskanen]

CALL FOR PAPERS		
Imaginary Japan:
Japanese Fantasy in Contemporary Popular Culture
Thursday 18, September ? Saturday 20, September 2008
At the University of Helsinki, Finland

Gothic Lolitas, anime and J-pop mixes with Western mainstream popular
culture, as Japanese horror films are remade in Hollywood, Finnish
kiosks sell manga, and Japanese pop music attracts unforeseen
audiences. Cuteness and monsters, stories and humours, sexuality and
violence in Japanese fantasy appeal widely in Western cultures.
Mutually, the Western styles fascinate in Japan. Styles and imageries
circulate between "Japan" and "West", appearing to each other as both
familiar and fascinatingly strange at the same time.

The Finnish Society for Cinema Studies (SETS) invites presentations
which explore the popular images of Japan in intercultural and
multidisciplinary context, concentrating on the theme of intercultural
encounters. The conference will bring together Japanese and Western
views on contemporary Japanese audiovisual and popular culture. The
conference will offer a multidisciplinary platform for scholars of a
wide range of relevant fields of studies in popular culture, film and
media, and is open to presentations from the entire spectrum of
popular culture: film, television, music, new media; photography and
other visual arts; sound, games, fashion and design.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

Machiko Kusahara, Waseda University / University of California
Alezander Zahlten, Universit?t Mainz / Nippon Connection Film Festival

We invite papers on intercultural encounters in all areas of popular
culture covering cultural, economical, political and social issues.
The themes of the seminar are:
? Globalization of Japanese popular culture
? Cultural interchange between Japan and West
? Fascination and seduction, otherness and cultural anxieties of
Japanese popular culture
? Different genres, styles and concepts in Japanese popular culture
(such as anime, manga, kawaii, pinku eiga, j-horror, otaku)
? Western and Finnish Fan experience
? Japanese cinema and media culture
? Aspects of production, artists and filmmakers
? Marketing processes of contemporary Japanese media culture
? Contemporary society, gender and ethnicity in Japanese popular culture.

Proposals including an abstract (max. 250 words) and a short CV should
be submitted to Conference Secretary Varpu Rantala by email:
varpu.rantala at helsinki.fi by April 30, 2008 at latest. Notification of
acceptance will be sent by May 23, 2008. The conference fee is 60
Euros (30 Euros concessions). The refereed seminar proceedings will be
published in IIPC Publication Series.

Organizers: Finnish Society for Film Studies in co-operation with
Helsinki International Film festival, National Audiovisual Archive
(Finland), International Institute for Popular Culture (IIPC) and
several Finnish University departments: Cinema and Television Studies
(University of Helsinki), Asia-Pacific Studies (University of
Helsinki), Media Studies (University of Turku), Centre for East-Asian
Studies (University of Turku), Department of Journalism and Mass
Communication (University of Tampere) and Elomedia (University of Art
and Design).
Conference pages at http://sets.wordpress.com/