The Female Gaze in Contemporary Japanese Literature

The female gaze can be used by writers and readers to look at narratives from a perspective that sees women as subjects instead of objects. Applying a female gaze to discourses that have traditionally been male-dominated opens new avenues of interpretation that are empowering from a feminist perspective. In this dissertation, I use the murder mystery novels of the bestselling female author Kirino Natsuo and the graphic novels of a prolific four-woman artistic collective called CLAMP to demonstrate how writers are capable of applying a female gaze to the themes of their work and how readers can and have read their work from the perspectives allowed by a female gaze. Kirino Natsuo presents a female perspective on such issues as prostitution, marriage, and equal employment laws in her novels, which are often based on sensationalist news stories. Meanwhile, CLAMP challenges the discourses surrounding the production and consumption of fictional women, especially the young female characters, or shojo, that have become iconic in Japanese popular culture. Likewise, the female consumers of popular media are able to view and interpret popular texts in such a way as to subjectify female characters and emphasize feminist themes. In addition, the erotic elements of a female gaze may be used to apply a subversive interpretation of the overt or implicit phallocentrism of mainstream media. The male gaze should not be taken for granted in the study of literary texts and graphic novels, and an awareness of an active female gaze can change the ways in which we understand contemporary Japanese literature and popular culture. Female readers and writers can find enjoyment and create messages of feminist empowerment even in works with flawed and problematic representations of femininity. The female gaze thus acts as a mode of resistant reading that allows alternate methods of reading, viewing, and interpreting the female characters and the gendered themes and issues of a text, regardless of the gender of the creators or the gender of the reader

Genetic diversity in the modern horse illustrated from genome-wide SNP data

Horses were domesticated from the Eurasian steppes 5,000-6,000 years ago. Since then, the use of horses for transportation, warfare, and agriculture, as well as selection for desired traits and fitness, has resulted in diverse populations distributed across the world, many of which have become or are in the process of becoming formally organized into closed, breeding populations (breeds). This report describes the use of a genome-wide set of autosomal SNPs and 814 horses from 36 breeds to provide the first detailed description of equine breed diversity. F(ST) calculations, parsimony, and distance analysis demonstrated relationships among the breeds that largely reflect geographic origins and known breed histories. Low levels of population divergence were observed between breeds that are relatively early on in the process of breed development, and between those with high levels of within-breed diversity, whether due to large population size, ongoing outcrossing, or large within-breed phenotypic diversity. Populations with low within-breed diversity included those which have experienced population bottlenecks, have been under intense selective pressure, or are closed populations with long breed histories. These results provide new insights into the relationships among and the diversity within breeds of horses. In addition these results will facilitate future genome-wide association studies and investigations into genomic targets of selection

Genetic Diversity in the Modern Horse Illustrated from Genome-Wide SNP Data

Horses were domesticated from the Eurasian steppes 5,000–6,000 years ago. Since then, the use of horses for transportation, warfare, and agriculture, as well as selection for desired traits and fitness, has resulted in diverse populations distributed across the world, many of which have become or are in the process of becoming formally organized into closed, breeding populations (breeds). This report describes the use of a genome-wide set of autosomal SNPs and 814 horses from 36 breeds to provide the first detailed description of equine breed diversity. FST calculations, parsimony, and distance analysis demonstrated relationships among the breeds that largely reflect geographic origins and known breed histories. Low levels of population divergence were observed between breeds that are relatively early on in the process of breed development, and between those with high levels of within-breed diversity, whether due to large population size, ongoing outcrossing, or large within-breed phenotypic diversity. Populations with low within-breed diversity included those which have experienced population bottlenecks, have been under intense selective pressure, or are closed populations with long breed histories. These results provide new insights into the relationships among and the diversity within breeds of horses. In addition these results will facilitate future genome-wide association studies and investigations into genomic targets of selection

Genetic Diversity in the Modern Horse Illustrated from Genome-Wide SNP Data

Peer reviewe

Genome-Wide Analysis Reveals Selection for Important Traits in Domestic Horse Breeds

Peer reviewe

Queering the media mix: The female gaze in Japanese fan comics

The Japanese expression "media mix" refers to multimedia marketing strategies for entertainment franchises. Although such franchises are commonly understood as being controlled by large corporations, the fans of these media properties make significant contributions to the mix, often expanding on the central themes of the source texts and queering them by rendering their subtexts explicit. In dōjinshi, or self-published fan comics, female readers create their own interpretations of stories, characters, and relationships in narratives targeted at a male demographic. In BL (boys' love) fan comics, which are notable for their focus on a romantic and often physical relationship between two male characters, the female gaze has created its own overtly homoerotic readings and interpretations that creatively subvert the phallocentrism implicit in many mainstream narratives. The interactions between texts and their readers found in dōjinshi illustrate how cycles of narrative production and consumption have changed in the face of active fan cultures. Because of the closely interrelated nature of the components of increasingly international media mixes, communities of fans have the potential to make positive and progressive contributions to the media mix ecosystem

"Manga in America: Transnational book publishing and the domestication of Japanese comics," by Casey Brienza

Review of Casey Brienza, Manga in America: Transnational book publishing and the domestication of Japanese comics. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. Hardback £70 (232p) (ISBN 978-1472595867); paperback £21.99 (232p) (ISBN 978-1472595874); e-book £23.74 (ISBN 978-1472595881)

"Anime fan communities: Transcultural flows and frictions," by Sandra Annett

Sandra Annett, Anime Fan Communities: Transcultural Flows and Frictions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, hardcover, $95 (253p) ISBN 978-1137480651; E-textbook,$76 (2471 KB), ASIN B00TR5JPW8

"Anime fan communities: Transcultural flows and frictions," by Sandra Annett

Sandra Annett, Anime Fan Communities: Transcultural Flows and Frictions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, hardcover, $95 (253p) ISBN 978-1137480651; E-textbook,$76 (2471 KB), ASIN B00TR5JPW8