Scholars Tackle Global Yaoi Phenomenon

Updated: To listen to the 18 October 2010 show, click here:
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A new scholarly work on the globalization of Yaoi has come out and KUCI's Subversity program features an interview with its co-editor and a contributor to this pioneering collection. The Yaoi phenomenon, part of a larger Boys Love visual depiction, features teen male romantic and sexual relationships, originally geared, in Japan, at a female readership. As it spread around the world (and the new book includes a chapter on Indonesia's reception to it), one wonders about its effect on how its readers -- now male and female, young and older -- view same-sex relationships in the real world.

Mark McHarry is an independent scholar. With Antonia Levi and Dru Pagliassotti, he edited a newly published collection of essays, Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre (McFarland). He has contributed to books, scholarly journals and critical popular publications, including Mangatopia (ABC-Clio); LGBT Identity and Online New Media (Routledge); Queer Popular Culture: Literature, Media, Film, and Television (Palgrave Macmillan); Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context; Encyclopedia of Erotic Literature (Routledge); Journal of Homosexuality; Z magazine; and Gay Community News. He has presented at conferences in the U.S. and Europe, including the Popular Culture Association, Modern Language Association, Textual Echoes (Umeå University, Sweden), and, this fall, at Écritures du corps (University of Paris). He is researching the life of author-inventor Hiraga Gennai.

Hope Donovan authored the chapter "Gift Versus Capitalist Economies: Exchanging Anime and Manga in the U.S." in Boys' Love Manga. With a double major in English and Drawing, Donovan's only logical career path was comics. Having attained this unlikely goal through legitimate employment editing Japanese and Korean manga as well as developing original series for TOKYOPOP, Donovan fulfilled her dreams by editing one hentai, one yuri, and one yaoi series simultaneously. She has contributed short manga to Happy Yaoi Yum Yum (Yaoi Press) and Yuri Monogatari (ALC). Donovan currently is a freelance manga editor, English adaptor, layout artist, and creator.

Tune in for a stimulating discussion on this global phenomenon that is invading urban and suburban bookstores.

Subversity airs from 5-6 p.m.today, 18 October, 2010, on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org.