BuzzCity - NUS Digital Media Forum Series
| Organized by |
NUS
Entrepreneurship Centre
Techno-Venture Forum
Presents
3rd BuzzCity-NUS Digital Media Series
Title :
|
"It's an Asian Thing": Cosplay and Singaporean Fan Culture |
Keynote Speaker :
|
Dr. Thang Leng Leng and Dr. Elizabeth
Maclachlan
|
Date :
|
25 January 2008
|
Time :
|
2:30pm - 5:30pm
|
Venue :
|
Engineering Auditorium, National University of Singapore
Please click here for location map
|
Programme |
2.30pm |
Registration |
3.00pm |
Keynote speech "It's an Asian Thing": Cosplay and Singaporean Fan Culture" by Dr. Thang Leng Leng and Dr. Elizabeth Maclachlan |
4:00pm |
Panel Discussion moderated by Dr. Lai Kok Fung, CEO BuzzCity Pte Ltd |
4:30pm |
"Social Networking and The Mobile Internet...." by Mr. Hisham Isa, VP Sales & Marketing, BuzzCity Pte Ltd
Millions the world over are accessing the internet via their mobile phones. A multi-country survey by BuzzCity, provider of global wireless communities, dispels some myths of consumer behaviour, usage and access. What significant trends are there between Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, North America and Western Europe?
|
4:45pm |
"Building your Portal and your Business" by Mr. Gerald Ang, Marketing Manager Infocomm Singapore Portal * |
5:00pm |
Networking and Refreshment |
|
* First 30 who register as member of Infocomm Singapore Portal at the booth will get a free Namecard Holder!
Keynote Abstract
Over the past decade, Japanese media culture such as anime, manga and J-pop
have gained unprecedented numbers of fans within Asia and have helped to
convert the image of a faltering Japan Inc. into a Mecca for trend-conscious
Asian youths. This talk discusses the appeal and popularity of Japanese
popular culture among Asian youth fans through an ethnographic study of
cosplay fandom in Singapore.
Cosplay - short for costume play - is the practice of dressing up as
manga/anime characters and meeting in public spaces to take photographs,
engage in role play, buy/sell fan art, and socialize. The practice is said
to have originated in Japan in the early 1980s and was introduced to
Singapore in the late 1990s. Today cosplay events in Singapore attract over
1000 participants with the vast majority between the ages of 15 and 24 and
female.
This talk analyzes the ways in which representations of "Japaneseness" are
simultaneously scripted into and extracted out of cosplay performances. In
particular, it focuses on notion that while "good" cosplay requires
cosplayers to become as Japanese as possible in the terms of the way they
look, act, speak, eat and move, it also requires them to reinterpret
characters' appearance and behavior when the original characters are deemed
too overtly sexual to conform with Singaporean "Asian Values." What this
play at cultural mimicry and critique implies for cosplayers as
Singaporeans, as women, and fans of Japanese popular culture are central
questions the presenters will address.
Biography
Dr. Thang Leng Leng: She is an Associate Professor and Head of Department of Japanese Studies at the National University of Singapore. She has produced
numerous publications in the areas of aging, intergenerational
relations/programming, gender and trans-Asian cultural flows.
Dr. Elizabeth MacLachlan: She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Japanese Studies at the National University of Singapore. She is producer
of the documentary short Fans in New Places: Cosplay in Singapore and has
published in the areas of female migration, Japanese television journalism
and trans-Asian popular culture flows.
**********************************************************************
We are pleased to invite you and your colleagues to attend the talk.
As there is limited number of seats available, please click here to register for the talk by 24 January 2008.
Please forward this invitation to your friends and colleagues who may be interested.
Thank You!
Admission is FREE & we look forward to seeing you at the seminar.
********************************************************************** |
 |
|
