1/29 Brian White

Ph.D. Candidate, EALC

“Mixed Media: SF as a Social Genre”

Time: Friday, January 29th, 3-5 pm

Zoom Registration: https://uchicago.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMvdOqrpj8qGtMpyU53gJvwY8zZpP_Sre3i

Discussant: Jiarui Sun, Ph.D. Student, EALC

The Art and Politics of East Asia (APEA) workshop is proud to host Brian White (Ph.D. Candidate, EALC), who will present his paper, “Mixed Media: SF as a Social Genre.” He summarizes the paper as follows:

Brian summarizes his chapter as follows: While the historical roots of the otaku (devoted fans of anime and manga) are often said to be in 1960s science fiction fandom, the specific theoretical implications of this connection have not been extensively explored in English. In this paper, Brian White develops a theory of the SF genre as a force of social relationality, exceeding the bounds of any one text or creator in favor of communal identification as “SF fans”. This genre-based model of social relations enfolds a transmedia assemblage of texts and media habits, allowing us to cut across the boundaries that have commonly divided literary and media studies examinations of media communities.

Brian White is a 9th year PhD candidate in EALC. His dissertation takes up issues of media, discourse, and community formation in 1960s Japanese science fiction. Starting next year, he will be assistant professor of Japanese at Kalamazoo College.

Please contact Jiayi Zhu (jiayizhu@uchicago.edu) and Sophia Walker (scwalker2@uchicago.edu) if you have any questions or concerns.
Jiayi and Sophia, Co-coordinators, Art and Politics of East Asia Workshop