Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Blog

Contact: Caitlin McGurk
The Ohio State University
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
1813 N High St.
Columbus OH 43210-1393
614-292-0538
cartoons@osu.edu

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 17, 2015

Upcoming Exhibition and Symposiums at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum

WORLD OF SHOJO MANGA!
MIRRORS OF GIRLS’ DESIRES

March 28, 2015 – July 5, 2015

Columbus: The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum will celebrate Women’s History Month, and their international cartoon holdings, with the opening of World of Shojo Manga! Mirrors of Girls’ Desires, a traveling exhibit curated by Masami Toku, Dept. of Art and Art History, CSU-Chico.

Many different kinds of manga have been published for different ages, genders, and fans’ favorite themes since the 1970s. One of the major characteristics of Japanese manga is that it has split into boy’s (shonen) and girl’s (shojo) manga, each developing in its own way. Based on reader’s expectations, each boy’s and girl’s manga has its own theme. Regardless of the subject, the main theme in boy’s manga is competitive fighting, and how the heroes become men by protecting women, family, country, or the earth from enemies, while the main theme of girl’s manga is simply love. Within this context, the topics in shojo manga have changed in response to girl’s expectations and have developed into diverse subjects over the last 70 years since World War I. This exhibition will focus on discussing the specific phenomenon of women’s changing roles and expectations in Japan.

The exhibition will feature works by 12 artists, including female mangaka Masako Watanabe, Miyako Maki, Hideko Mizuno, Machiko Satonaka, and Moto Hagio.

Masami Toku, curator of this exhibit, is a professor in the Department of Art and Art History (CSU), Chico, where she teaches courses in art education and multicultural perspectives of art appreciation. She also works internationally as an educator, publisher, researcher, and speaker. Professor Toku  created this touring exhibition to explore the role of visual pop culture that impacts U.S. society through the phenomenon of manga in Japan. It also introduces manga’s value and contribution to visual culture and society with a special emphasis on shojo manga.

This exhibit will be part of a continuing celebration of manga throughout the spring semester, including two symposiums: Classic Manga and Development & Globalization of Manga (more info below).

Join us on Saturday, April 4th from 5 – 7pm for the opening reception of World of Shojo Manga! Mirrors of Girls’ Desires in The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum galleries.  Cosplayers are welcome and encouraged!

Also on display at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum will be Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women. Separate details forthcoming.

About the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum:  The BICLM is one of The Ohio State University Libraries’ special collections. Its primary mission is to develop a comprehensive research collection of materials documenting American printed cartoon art (editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, sports cartoons, and magazine cartoons) and to provide access to the collections.  The BICLM recently moved into its newly-renovated 30,000 sq. ft. facility that includes a museum with three exhibition galleries, a reading room for researchers and a state-of-the-art collections storage space.   The library reading room is open Monday-Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 1 – 5 p.m. The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday from 1 – 5 p.m.  See http://cartoons.osu.edu/ for further information.

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MANGA at A CROSSROADS: SYMPOSIUMS I & II

Symposium 1: Classic Manga

Date: Friday, March 6
Location: Thompson Library 165

12:00-12:10:    Opening

12:10-1:10:      Prof. Maureen Donovan (OSU) “Comics from the Time of ‘Erotic Grotesque Nonsense’: Yomiuri Sunday Manga of 1930-1931”

1:10-2:10:         Prof. Thomas LaMarre (McGill University) “Manga Empire: Companion Species and Shōnen Kurabu”

2:10-2:15:        Break

2:15-3:15:        Prof. Gennifer Weisenfeld (Duke University)  “Laughing in the Face of Calamity: Visual Satire after the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923”

3:15-4:15:        Prof. Natsu Onoda Power (Georgetown University) “Questioning the Racial Question: Representations of Human Faces in Classic Manga”

4:30:                   Reception

Symposium 2: Development and Globalization of Manga
Date: Saturday, April 4, 2015
Location: Sullivant Hall 220

1:00-1:10:        Opening

1:10-2:10:         Prof. Masami Toku (California State University, Chico)  “World of Shōjo Manga!: Mirrors of Girls’ Desires”

2:10-3:10:         Prof. Jennifer Prough (Valparaiso University)  “Local Texts, Global Audiences: a View from within the Shōjo Manga  Industry”

3:10-3:15:         Break:

3:15-4:15:         Prof. Kerim Yasar (OSU)  “Marketing Manga in the U.S.: Translational Strategies, Transnational  Flows”

4:15-5:15:         Prof. Casey Brienza (City University of London)  “Global Manga: ‘Japanese’ Comics without Japan?”

5:15-5:30:        Wrap-up

5:30:                    Reception

Sponsors: East Asian Studies Center, Institute for Japanese Studies, Ohio State University Libraries, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Department of History of Art, Department of Arts Administration, Education & Policy, Division of Arts and Humanities, Association for Asian Studies, Japan Foundation, and US Department of Education (Title VI)

For more information and printable flyers click here: http://easc.osu.edu/manga2015