Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East

We report genome-wide ancient DNA from 44 ancient Near Easterners ranging in time between ~12,000 and 1,400 BC, from Natufian hunter–gatherers to Bronze Age farmers. We show that the earliest populations of the Near East derived around half their ancestry from a ‘Basal Eurasian’ lineage that had little if any Neanderthal admixture and that separated from other non-African lineages before their separation from each other. The first farmers of the southern Levant (Israel and Jordan) and Zagros Mountains (Iran) were strongly genetically differentiated, and each descended from local hunter–gatherers. By the time of the Bronze Age, these two populations and Anatolian-related farmers had mixed with each other and with the hunter–gatherers of Europe to greatly reduce genetic differentiation. The impact of the Near Eastern farmers extended beyond the Near East: farmers related to those of Anatolia spread westward into Europe; farmers related to those of the Levant spread southward into East Africa; farmers related to those of Iran spread northward into the Eurasian steppe; and people related to both the early farmers of Iran and to the pastoralists of the Eurasian steppe spread eastward into South Asia

The \u3cem\u3eYōkai\u3c/em\u3e in the Database: Supernatural Creatures and Folklore in Manga and Anime

I consider the Japanese anime and manga narratives Gegege no Kitarō by Mizuki Shigeru and Inuyasha by Takahashi Rumiko, which draw on Japanese folklore, and discuss how they reinterpret supernatural creatures, or yōkai, for a modern audience. Since the Edo period (1603–1867), yōkai have been presented in encyclopedic format. Mizuki, through manga, has continued and enhanced that approach to yōkai discourse. The encyclopedic format has made the yōkai easily assimilable not only into modern culture alongside more recently invented cartoon characters, but also into manga and anime, such as Inuyasha. This speaks to the power and creative possibility of the yōkai database. There is a striking similarity between the database of yōkai and the database approach to narrative that Azuma Hiroki describes as an identifying trait of otaku consumption of manga and anime. I argue that database creation and consumption is not a recent development, nor is it unique to otaku. The database is one way to talk about both anime and yōkai more productively and to expand the ways we talk about how texts are produced and consumed

The Girl in the Whirlpool: Girls' Culture (Shōjo Bunka) in Tanizaki's Manji = 谷崎潤一郎の『卍』における少女文化

10.1353/jwj.2020.0002U.S.-Japan Women's Journal5713-2

Sun Tribe: Cultural Production and Popular Culture in Post-War Japan

E-ASPAC: Electronic Journal in Asian Studies1-1

Meiji at 150 Podcast, Episode 087, Dr. Deborah Shamoon (National University of Singapore)

In this episode, Dr. Shamoon redraws depictions of the shōjo, or adolescent women, in Japanese cultural production in the Meiji and Taishō period, drawing connections between literature and new understandings of adolescent women’s roles in society. We discuss the emergence of new types of female characters in Meiji literature by Futabatei Shimei, Miyake Kaho, and Mori Ōgai, views of teenage girls as threatening in works by Tayama Katai and Tanizaki Junichirō, and changes in shōjo culture as seen in shōjo manga and the popularity of Misora Hibari in the postwar.Arts, Faculty ofHistory, Department ofNon UBCUnreviewedFacult

Girly porno comics: contemporary US pornographic comics for women

In the past fifteen years there has been a substantial increase in the visibility of and interest in pornography produced by and for women. Within both comics studies and porn studies, while there has been much, important and well-deserved, academic attention paid to Boy’s Love manga and some smaller amount of consideration of shõjo manga, pornographic comics by and for women produced and published within the Anglophone US market have been discussed very little so far. In this context, this article discusses the work of two contemporary American creators – Jess Fink and Colleen Coover – who produce pornographic comics for women that explore and represent women’s sexual desires and pleasures in ways they argue were lacking from previous pornographic comics. In these comics, women’s sexual desires and pleasures are presented as central to the narrative and, through the use of the specific structures of comics as both legitimate and diverse. Through the use of voyeurism and the sexual imagination as both themes and structures within their respective comics, these creators also interrogate the representation of women’s sexual desire in comics, encouraging both identification and critical analysis from their readers

Queer Affective Literacies: Examining Rotten Women\u27s Literacies in Japan

In Japan, there is a group of women who are notoriously known as “rotten women” because of their fantasies that perceive male homosocial relationships as homoromantic or homosexual. These transformative homoerotic fantasies are central to Boys Love culture. These “rotten women” or fujoshi engage with Japanese popular media using Boys Love literacies that challenge normative notions of male intimacy. In this paper, I examine Boys Love literacies, which bear intertextual and potentially queer qualities, and the impact these have on readers. I interrogate how an audience, immersed in heteronormative Japanese media, learn these non-normative literacies that I am positioning as a set of new literacies. I analyse Boys Love literacies embedded in fanworks, particularly women’s fan comics, and highlight how these serve as pedagogical tools in understanding the logics of these nuanced literacies. I argue that these comics serve as critical affective mediums that impart the queer and intertextual characteristics of Boys Love culture that challenge heteronormative engagements with Japanese popular media. This paper highlights a kind of cultural literacy production and dissemination that operate on a grassroots level and is produced by young actors who actively explore the queer potential of Japanese media