WPI Journal, Volume 78, Issue 5, February 1975

Published quarterly by Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in conjunction with the WPI Alumni Association.https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/wpijournal-all/1021/thumbnail.jp

Japanese Women\u27s Science Fiction: Posthuman Bodies and the Representation of Gender

My dissertation explores the way Japanese women science fiction writers and manga (illustrated stories, often translated as comics) artists have used posthumans, cyborgs, and other hybrid creatures to question contemporary gender roles and identities. Traditionally, science fiction has been seen as a male domain. But by incorporating science fiction themes into manga and fiction intended for a female readership, these writers have carved out space for women in the genre and have stretched the boundaries of science fiction in the process. I focus primarily on the representation of posthuman bodies in the literary works of Ohara Mariko (b.1959) and Ueda Sayuri (b.1964), and the manga of Hagio Moto (b.1949). It is my contention that these women writers\u27 use of posthuman or other liminal figures that breach the boundaries of humanity create a so-called queer effect that undoes normative sex/gender and sexualities. Queer effect is, in short, a moment or a space deviated from straight or normative worlds in order to serve feminist interests and to critique, both overtly and covertly, contemporary social customs. Introduction offers the confinement and devaluation of women\u27s writing and criticism in the science fiction community as well as more generally in Japanese literary history. All subsequent chapters in my dissertation offer close readings of texts that highlight particular aspects typical of women\u27s science fiction in Japan, such as queering sex/gender, the evolution of cyborgs, the importance of performance, and alternative reproduction and familial relationships. Chapter One and Two further explore Hagio\u27s manga experiments with the combined use of ambiguously sexed/gendered identities, especially androgynous and dual-sexed characters that challenge the dichotomy of sex/gender and the conventional notion of motherhood and female reproduction. Additionally, I consider the way she incorporates the male-male romance scenarios popular to girl\u27s manga of the 1970s. Chapter Three investigates the cyborg characters in Ohara\u27s works and shows how cyborg bodies highlight merging multiple genders and/or reconstruct gender through simulation. The cyborg in the text is constructed as either having a fixed or a free-floating gender. In contrast, the feminine space (consisting of mother-daughter dyads, images of both nurturing and destructive maternity, reproduction, monstrosity, and emotionality) is prominently simulated through parodic performance to challenge the masculinist portrayals of femininity. Chapter Four examines the ways genetically engineered dual-sexed beings are perceived by men and women in Ueda\u27s work and illustrates how normative sexualities and binaristic gender discourse are challenged. Chapter Five continues the exploration of Ueda\u27s works by focusing on the interdependent relationships between humans and non-humans. These relationships disrupt a coherent subjectivity and create alternative forms of queer families that undo received notions of what constitutes humanity and gender. In conclusion, these three authors contribute to the act of expressing posthuman feminist critiques through creating a new paradigm of gender. Their works paradoxically also take us back to unresolved binaristic gender concerns and open up ongoing questions of gender issues

Bostonia: 1998-1999, no. 1, 3-4

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Columbia Chronicle (01/24/2011)

Student newspaper from January 24, 2011 entitled The Columbia Chronicle. This issue is 48 pages and is listed as Volume 46, Number 16. Cover story: Past, present bound together Editor-in-Chief: Spencer Roushhttps://digitalcommons.colum.edu/cadc_chronicle/1805/thumbnail.jp

Legendary Days – a novel, and the Aspects of Geek Culture in Fiction

This Creative and Critical Writing PhD thesis explores the dialogue between fiction and geek culture. It seeks to understand the definitions and uses of the terms ‘geek’, ‘nerd’ and ‘otaku’ over time. I look for points of commonality and how they have been used in texts since the seventeenth century. After this initial exploration, I move to a close reading of three novels that are representative of geek culture. These texts comment on geek culture though they do not belong to genres traditionally associated with it, such as fantasy or science fiction. Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao makes extensive use of footnotes, intertextuality and hypertextuality. Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs explores the influence of technology, tries to define geeks and nerds, plays with form and language, and touches on the subject of posthumanity. Meanwhile, Nakano Hitori’s Train Man, which began life as a collective online message board thread, challenges common tenants of fiction, especially that of authorship and form. The novels, in the order in which they are discussed, move from the traditional to the innovative. They pose questions about the way in which geek culture interacts with fiction, how this influence plays out in terms of theme, characterisation, format, and the reading experience. Finally, these novels also interrogate ways geek culture might help us understand the future of fiction writing. Both thesis and novel were designed with the idea of ‘play’ in mind, with particular reference to games, flexibility and contestation. The creative element of this thesis, Legendary Days, is a geeky novel about saving memories. The protagonist, after loosing his father, writes down his own memories in a narrative that plays with geek culture and related themes. It follows the same character in three different times and contexts, while also allowing for several intertextual intromissions throughout the text