UBC's Sharalyn Orbaugh to Present 'What’s Queer about Postwar Manga?' Oct. 24

Sharalyn Orbaugh of the University of British Columbia, will present “What’s Queer about Postwar Manga?” from 3-4 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 24  in Science Lecture 140.

The talk is free and open to the public.

The usual narrative about queerness in postwar manga locates its origins in a shôjo story drawn by (male manga artist) Tezuka Osamu: Ribon no kishi (Princess Knight, serialized 1953-56). Whether manga historians celebrate the dual-gendered protagonist or criticize Tezuka’s heterocentrism, they tend to oversimplify and obscure some of the crucial elements that make this manga queer. This presentation will begin with a re-examination and repositioning of several of the most frequently cited examples of queer postwar manga, but will concentrate on the very large number of narratives from the past 15 years that show how manga artists are queering normative ideas of sex, gender and sexuality in increasingly sophisticated ways, both visually and textually.

Sharalyn Orbaugh is professor of modern Japanese literature and popular culture at the University of British Columbia. Her research interests include manga, anime, science fiction, and propaganda.