Past & Present Projects

You can learn more about my major projects here.

Black Bulter - Aestheticism, Gothic, and Foreshadowing.pptx

Panel Description: Discover how this manga masterfully intertwines Victorian aestheticism and classic gothic novel themes to weave the haunting and compelling story of Ciel Phantomhive. Perfect for fans of gothic literature and anyone interested in the rich blend of history and fiction in Yana Toboso's Black Butler.

Optional Formats: 30 min. | 60 min. Presentation

Presented: 

Full Presentation - Natsume Yuujinchou Making a Place for Yōkai in the Modern World.pptx

Making A Place For Yōkai In The Modern World

Previously titled: "Yōkai In The Modern World”

View here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OxVKgJDKl-jebPueiIonPHNHoq_T38wk/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108757933484591052415&rtpof=true&sd=true

Panel Description: A panel examining Japan's rich spiritual heritage, including Shintoism, yōkai mythology, and the impact of these beliefs and myths on Japanese animation and manga. Using the series "Natsume Yuujinchou" as the frame for this discussion, this panel demonstrates how the yōkai mythos continues to find a place in modern society.

Optional Formats: 15 min. | 30 min. | 60 min. Presentation

Presented: 

Full Presentation - Virtual Tourism With Anime.pptx

Panel Description: Due to the pandemic, many tourists faced travel restrictions and were unable to visit their desired destinations around the world. Japan was among the countries with strictest measures. Though Japan’s tourism restrictions were lifted in October 2022, some individuals may still be wary of traveling abroad. In this panel, the audience will explore how to embark on a virtual pilgrimage to some of your favorite places in Japan by using anime as the inspiration and Google Maps for visual aids. The host will teach you how to enhance your virtual journey with research techniques to add to your cultural knowledge, using "Detective Conan,” also called "Case Closed," to demonstrate how to create a virtual pilgrimage and provide a few case studies for reference.

Optional Formats: 30 min. | 60 min. Presentation

Presented: 

Full Presentation - Anime Blogging Basics Bootcamp.pptx

Panel Description: This panel on starting and running an anime blog is an insightful and practical session that provides aspiring bloggers with the essential knowledge and tools to embark on their anime blogging journey! We cover topics such as niche selection, content creation, building a reader base, SEO strategies, social media promotion, and monetization techniques. Attendees receive valuable tips, personal anecdotes, and best practices to effectively engage with the anime community, cultivate their unique voices, maintain consistency, and navigate potential challenges. By the end of the session, participants are equipped with the necessary skills and inspiration to launch (and, hopefully, sustain) a successful anime blog!

Optional Formats: 30 min. Presentation | 60 min. Presentation

Presented: 

Full Presentation - ΣΤΔ Alumni Professional Development - Blogging Basics For English Majors.pptx

Panel Description: This panel on starting and managing a blog is an informative and practical session that equips aspiring bloggers with essential knowledge and tools to begin their blogging journey! Join as the presenter explores areas such as niche selection, content creation, audience building, communication strategies, and a few monetization techniques to those starting out. The objective is for those attending to gain valuable insights through some general information and personal anecdotes on the best practices to effectively engage with their community, develop their unique voices, maintain consistency, and navigate potential challenges. By the end of the session, participants should be well equipped with the necessary skills and inspiration to launch or relaunch (and, hopefully, sustain) a successful blog!

Optional Formats: 60 min. Presentation

Presented:

Full Presentation - Fan Content Creates New Fans & Other Important Info.pptx

Panel Description: In this panel, audience members are introduced to how fan-created content applies to the industry life cycle, causing an influx of new fans and sometimes new source materials, as well as the rules of copyright use and why fan content, like those found in artist alley, tends to get by without too much legal obstruction.  

Optional Formats: 30 min. | 60 min. Presentation

Presented: 

Full Presentation - Entering Anime & Manga Studies.pptx

Panel Description: Are you interested in getting into anime and manga studies? This informative session explores the multidisciplinary field of anime and manga studies. Led by one academic enthusiast, we delve into the various avenues for consideration of those interested in the study of this vibrant medium! Including academic programs, research opportunities, online resources, and community initiatives. Let's help this rapidly growing field by further igniting a passion for scholarly exploration and appreciation of these captivating forms of storytelling!

Optional Formats: 30 min. Presentation | 60 min. Presentation

Presented: 

Full Presentation - Cultural Differences_ Japan’s Manga & America’s Comics.pptx

Manga & Comics: A Different Cultural Base

Previously titled: “A Different Cultural Base: Japanese Manga & American Comics"

View here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14-kCTIotEKn63stVansz3uWW0JznEOtF/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108757933484591052415&rtpof=true&sd=true

Panel Description: A brief introduction to the basic differences between manga and comics from a cultural standpoint and how this difference in treatment may be leading to the industry boom we see today. (A shorter, 30 min. version of this panel labeled "Cultural Differences: Japanese Manga & American Comics" was presented at Kumoricon in 2022 on Saturday, November 12, 2022.)

Optional Formats: 30 min. Presentation | 60 min. Presentation

More About This Project:

This project explores the differences between manga and comics from a cultural standpoint. I chose this project because, as a Western fan, I found it interesting that Western fans tend to mark comics and manga as different (as well as mark anime and animation as different). While researching, I developed a theory that part of this distinction is not just cultural differences in the fans or on a societal level, but potentially tied to publishing and distribution differences. 

This project began under the guidance of Professor Fumiko Ishii at Irvine Valley College for the JA21 Japanese Culture class. It has since developed into a larger, personal project that I hope to continue pursuing and complete, potentially through a graduate program. The objective of this project is to identify how publishing trends both reflect the culture and shape it–in the country of origin but also abroad.

This project is not yet complete but the foundation of the work has been recognized and presented at several conventions and continues to update as more research is completed. 

Presented: 

Poster Presentation: 

Oscar Wilde challenged society through his writings. Whether it be in his commentary on aesthetics and fashion or his fictional works, his character and his characters have criticized society’s strict standards on lifestyle and morality by creating his own rules or turning the strict ways of the age into something dark or something laughable. He does so with the express purpose of swaying people’s minds toward his own ideology. This ideology is heavily influenced by ancient Greek mythology, which is evidenced by his numerous references to their documentation as well as the similarities of his characters to mythic counterparts in classic tales, a prime example being that of Dorian from The Picture of Dorian Gray to Narcissus from Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Through an examination of The Picture of Dorian Gray and mythology, particularly Narcissus’s tale, I aim to prove that the relationship between myth and novel is more than a simple frame or the inclusion of knowledgeable references within the work. Rather, I believe that the inclusion of such references and the similarities Wilde creates between his characters and Greek mythic counterparts is intended to lead readers toward a particular lesson or moral. This lesson is a warning against the rising hubris one finds in the Victorian Era. As Julius Caesar is quoted, “It's only hubris if I fail," and that surely fits the urban gothic tale of Dorian Gray. This paper will prove that The Picture of Dorian Gray is another work in Wilde’s long list of titles which addresses an issue he sees in the society that might be correctable. This issue is that of the rising hubris found in urban settings of Victorian England.

Presented: 

The Female Novelist's Anxiety of Authorship

View here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wGpj6Lyt3AQHdTBPPRBwMNzAbu9iolwk/view?usp=sharing 

Poster Presentation: The “anxiety of authorship” is a term defined through the female author’s experience and contextual location in both time and place. The term was introduced by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in their book, The Madwoman in the Attic, where they discussed the struggles of authorship that women of the nineteenth-century in Western cultures faced regarding both the internal struggle of influence that all writer have—which was defined by Bloom with a male focus—and the external struggle against patriarchal forces. Regarding this particular term, Gilbert and Gubar examined the short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilma (or Charlotte Perkins Stetson), which to them depicted, in fictional terms, the extent of the patriarchal forces at hand and their psychological effect on the female authorship. The anxiety of authorship is “not a recommendation for [the female writer] but an analysis of one,” meaning that no solutions can be drawn from the texts because they are not answers, rather, they are experiences (Gilbert and Gubar 1928). While many authors and critics may now feel that the “anxiety of authorship” no longer applies to contemporary works of literature, there is an argument that the ever-growing population of female authors in Eastern cultures still suffers the same forces once faced in what Western culture believes to be literary “history.” By examining the feminist theory of the “anxiety of authorship” in relation to Maki Kashimida’s short story “The Female Novelist” and Charlotte Gilma’s "The Yellow Wallpaper," this paper shows how “The Female Novelist” appears to depict the theory in modern terms, from a Japanese perspective.

Presented: 

Maurice’s Love: Coming Out Hasn't Changed

Previously titled: "Maurice's Love"

View here: https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1209&context=cusrd_abstracts 

Poster Presentation & Lightning Talk:

“By linking their love to the past he linked it to the present” - E. M. Forster

E. M. Forster’s Maurice is a widely read and taught text that features homosexuality in Edwardian England. The focus of this thesis is an in-depth analysis of Maurice’s character, with a spe- cific emphasis on the character’s coming out process. The com- ing out process is still a significant issue in today’s world. Hate crimes, ostracism, and many other negatives can be associated with the coming out process that is not entirely different from what Maurice Hall faced. This statement is easily supported by historical accounts and modern day research studies. “Written during 1913 and 1914, immediately after Howards End, and not published until 1971, Maurice was ahead of its time” in showing how difficult and frightening the coming out process can be but also showed that “love between men can be happy” (“Maurice”). To support the claims made in the analysis of this character’s thoughts and behaviors are a number of contemporary psycho- logical studies. The research studies used to focus on the subject of coming out; these studies have found that the coming out process has various stages leading up to, around, and after com- ing out. In many ways, Maurice reflects these stages and ex- periences, which justifies the use of Maurice as an analysis of what is an almost universal experience for many queer and homosexual youths that struggle with their sexuality and the coming out process. “By linking their love to the past he linked it to the present,” in the same way that the characters found a base for their love, we as readers can find a discussion and critique of today’s notions of sexuality rooted in a longer narrative (Forster 745). Essentially, the importance of this analysis is that it links the past experiences of the fictional Maurice to present day ex- periences of real people and, by doing so, supports the reason for the text to continue being taught and read.

Presented: