logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2025
44 m

Jaqueline Berndt, "The Cambridge Compani...

Marshall Poe
About this episode

In recent years, manga and anime have attracted increasing scholarly interest beyond the realm of Japanese studies. This Companion takes a unique approach, committed to exploring both the similarities and differences between these two distinct but interrelated media forms. Firmly based in Japanese sources, The Cambridge Companion to Manga and Anime (Cambridge UP, 2024) offers a lively and accessible introduction, exploring the local contexts of manga and anime production, distribution, and reception in Japan, as well as the global influence and impact of these versatile media. Chapters explore common characteristics such as visuals, voice, serial narrative and characters, whilst also highlighting distinct challenges and histories. The volume provides both a basis for further research in this burgeoning field and a source of inspiration for those new to the topic.

Listeners are also invited to observe an author roundtable on Feb.19, 2025. Please RSVP here.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

Up next
Jul 7
Elana Levine, "Her Stories: Daytime Soap Opera and US Television History" (Duke UP, 2020)
Since the debut of These Are My Children in 1949, the daytime television soap opera has been foundational to the history of the medium as an economic, creative, technological, social, and cultural institution. In Her Stories, Elana Levine draws on archival research and her experi ... Show More
36m 40s
Jul 3
Zev Handel, "Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese" (U Washington Press, 2025)
For centuries, scribes across East Asia used Chinese characters to write things down–even in languages based on very different foundations than Chinese. In southern China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, people used Chinese to read and write–and never thought it was odd. It was, after ... Show More
46m 54s
Jun 30
Felix Cowan, "The Kopeck Press: Popular Journalism in Revolutionary Russia, 1908-1918" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
In this episode, Alisa interviews Dr. Felix Cowan about his new book, The Kopeck Press Popular Journalism in Revolutionary Russia, 1908–1918 (University of Toronto Press, 2025). The Imperial Russian penny press was a vast network of newspapers sold for a single kopeck per issue. ... Show More
51m 56s
Recommended Episodes
Apr 2024
Adam Kabat, "The River Imp and the Stinky Jewel and Other Tales: Monster Comics from Edo Japan" (Columbia UP, 2023)
Adam Kabat’s The River Imp and the Stinky Jewel and Other Tales: Monster Comics from Edo Japan (Columbia UP, 2023) is an in-depth introduction to the rich and ribald world of kibyōshi, a short-lived (1778-1807) subgenre of books combining text and illustration on the same page, m ... Show More
1h 3m
Dec 2022
Stevie Suan, "Anime's Identity: Performativity and Form Beyond Japan" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
A formal approach to anime rethinks globalization and transnationality under neoliberalism Anime has become synonymous with Japanese culture, but its global reach raises a perplexing question--what happens when anime is produced outside of Japan? Who actually makes anime, and how ... Show More
59m 38s
Apr 2024
Paul Hansen, "Hokkaido Dairy Farm: Cosmopolitics of Otherness and Security on the Frontiers of Japan" (SUNY Press, 2024)
As an ethnography of a Japanese dairy farm while having theoretical values going beyond the specific context, Hokkaido Dairy Farm: Cosmopolitics of Otherness and Security on the Frontiers of Japan (SUNY Press, 2024) offers a historical and ethnographic examination of the rapid in ... Show More
49m 8s
Apr 2024
M. Cooper Minister and Sarah J. Bloesch, "Cultural Approaches to Studying Religion: An Introduction to Theories and Methods" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Cultural Approaches to Studying Religion: An Introduction to Theories and Method (Bloomsbury, 2023) examines the analytic tools of scholars in religious studies, as well as in related disciplines that have shaped the field including cultural approaches from anthropology, history, ... Show More
28m 2s
May 2022
Susan Westhafer Furukawa, "The Afterlife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi: Historical Fiction and Popular Culture in Japan" (Harvard UP, 2022)
Popular representations of the past are everywhere in Japan, from cell phone charms to manga, from television dramas to video games to young people dressed as their favorite historical figures hanging out in the hip Harajuku district. But how does this mass consumption of the pas ... Show More
41 m
Jan 2024
Thomas Baudinette, "Boys Love Media in Thailand: Celebrity, Fans, and Transnational Asian Queer Popular Culture" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Thomas Baudinette's Boys Love Media in Thailand: Celebrity, Fans, and Transnational Asian Queer Popular Culture (Bloomsbury, 2023) explores the contours of fandom, and in particular the mainstreaming of queer romance, not only in Thailand but in the Philippines and also Japan. To ... Show More
46m 45s
Jan 2024
Ankhi Mukherjee and Ato Quayson, "Decolonizing the English Literary Curriculum" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
George Floyd's death on May 25th 2020 marked a watershed in reactions to anti-Black racism in the United States and elsewhere. Intense demonstrations around the world followed. Within literary studies, the demonstrations accelerated the scrutiny of the literary curriculum, the ne ... Show More
1h 2m
Jan 2025
Weebs
Weebs… and the people who hate them. Japan has always had a distinctive relationship with the West. But ever since it broke out on the global stage with its “gross national cool” - distributing an array of films, shows, video games, and toys the world over, Westerners have taken ... Show More
1 h
Oct 2024
Kristina Kolbe, "The Sound of Difference: Race, Class and the Politics of 'Diversity' in Classical Music" (Manchester UP, 2024)
What is the future of classical music? In The Sound of Difference: Race, Class and the Politics of 'Diversity' in Classical Music (Manchester UP, 2024), Kristina Kolbe, an assistant professor of Sociology of Arts and Culture in the School of History, Culture and Communication at ... Show More
42m 49s