They approved my subject =D Now, they actually pretty much approved all the subjects, but I'm still happy. And my supervisor is specialist on literature dealing with queer theory, the female body and identification. Sweet!
Now, I've already started a bit, mostly gathering books and trying to find other research on the subject. Problem no 1 is that I already have a bit too much theory, but the question is at least well-defined and, I believe, narrow enough: "How is the Heroine portrayed in Sailor Moon?"
First leg to support me will be Joseph Campbell and his Hero archetype works. This turned out to be trickier than I expected, actually, since I (naively) assumed that there ought to be s-e-v-e-r-a-l works regarding the female heroine, or aiming a gender-critical light on Campbell while lifting an alternate theory... but either I fail at searches or there isn't much. I found Lichtman's little book, and will use it, but I'm deeply grateful if someone can link me to anything else *hopeful smile*
It's not even like I like Campbell that much, but at this level we have to tie our work to previous research and I can't find anything that really interests me and is relevant for the topic, especially since I want to work with the manga and not the anime. Alas, I wish I could read Japanese.
On the positive side, there's been some really good, very concrete stuff in the books about children's literature which I basically stumbled on because some kind teacher put it on the reading list for the intro seminar for the essays. I've got far too limited space to do a comprehensive "this is how the heroine's journey works in SM" analysis, but with the help of the narrativist methods in those books, I think I'll be able to make a handy little table of archetypal moments/attributes and use those. Nifty!
It also saves me the headache of trying to, say, draw a conclusion of only the first "saga" of Sailor Moon, which I am really glad I can escape since her role changes so much in the later parts of the manga.
Conclusions so far: The state of manga and anime studies in Sweden is dreadful. I mean, the state of such studies in the US aren't all that much to shout hooray about either, but it's really improved in the last, oh, five years? regarding published books. Since I haven't been attached to a university and had time to research and access the trends, I am assuming that it started to get better within the academic world before this, and only took a while to leak out. But, anyway, compared to the fairly orientalistic, Othering, unrelevant and downright erreneous works I met the first time I dipped my toe into manga/anime-related academic texts it's gotten much better. That is not to say that all early works were bad - Schodts books for instance still hold up very well - but plenty of them were. Mostly due to a limited amount of material which skeeved the results, something that was too rarely acknowledged imo. (I talk big here, and I might totally get to eat it when it comes to my own wrigting. But fuckit, self-confidence FTW. Yeah?)
Already found a nice little book called Girl reading Girl in Japan which is, alas, only relevant to a very small part of what I want to write about but I'm gonna read all of it some time anyway because it looks interesting.
Anyway, of the student essays and thesis works and whatnot that I've found from Swedish universities (mostly searched for in hopes to find good literature lists) the only one worth a positive mention is the "Kissing Cousins" essay, about the portrayal of homosexuality in the japanese vs US versions of Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura. Not a brilliant work, but, you know, it actually makes a relevant question, answers it with relevant material and doesn't claim that this is a golden rule of all anime ever (I am looking at you, Susan Napier, you hack)
Last but not least, I have been, let's call it 'heavily encouraged' by my supervisor to include an appendix with a few relevant scenes. Which means that I did the right thing saving all those dreadful magazine editions because they're THAT much easier to copy than a tankobon mwahahahaha~
Lastly, a question... Why, in pretty much all English-language work I can find, do the authors always use the word shojo when they're talking about girls and girls stuff?
It's not like essays and books about Astrid Lindgren borrow the word "flicka" or for that matter "pojke", do they? And, like, hardly anybode bothers to explain why they do this I am confuddled
I am also hyper on coffee, chocolate and too little sleep since I handed in my last exam today (with 3 minutes to spare wheee~) so, uh, excuse the rambleyness of this.
Now, I've already started a bit, mostly gathering books and trying to find other research on the subject. Problem no 1 is that I already have a bit too much theory, but the question is at least well-defined and, I believe, narrow enough: "How is the Heroine portrayed in Sailor Moon?"
First leg to support me will be Joseph Campbell and his Hero archetype works. This turned out to be trickier than I expected, actually, since I (naively) assumed that there ought to be s-e-v-e-r-a-l works regarding the female heroine, or aiming a gender-critical light on Campbell while lifting an alternate theory... but either I fail at searches or there isn't much. I found Lichtman's little book, and will use it, but I'm deeply grateful if someone can link me to anything else *hopeful smile*
It's not even like I like Campbell that much, but at this level we have to tie our work to previous research and I can't find anything that really interests me and is relevant for the topic, especially since I want to work with the manga and not the anime. Alas, I wish I could read Japanese.
On the positive side, there's been some really good, very concrete stuff in the books about children's literature which I basically stumbled on because some kind teacher put it on the reading list for the intro seminar for the essays. I've got far too limited space to do a comprehensive "this is how the heroine's journey works in SM" analysis, but with the help of the narrativist methods in those books, I think I'll be able to make a handy little table of archetypal moments/attributes and use those. Nifty!
It also saves me the headache of trying to, say, draw a conclusion of only the first "saga" of Sailor Moon, which I am really glad I can escape since her role changes so much in the later parts of the manga.
Conclusions so far: The state of manga and anime studies in Sweden is dreadful. I mean, the state of such studies in the US aren't all that much to shout hooray about either, but it's really improved in the last, oh, five years? regarding published books. Since I haven't been attached to a university and had time to research and access the trends, I am assuming that it started to get better within the academic world before this, and only took a while to leak out. But, anyway, compared to the fairly orientalistic, Othering, unrelevant and downright erreneous works I met the first time I dipped my toe into manga/anime-related academic texts it's gotten much better. That is not to say that all early works were bad - Schodts books for instance still hold up very well - but plenty of them were. Mostly due to a limited amount of material which skeeved the results, something that was too rarely acknowledged imo. (I talk big here, and I might totally get to eat it when it comes to my own wrigting. But fuckit, self-confidence FTW. Yeah?)
Already found a nice little book called Girl reading Girl in Japan which is, alas, only relevant to a very small part of what I want to write about but I'm gonna read all of it some time anyway because it looks interesting.
Anyway, of the student essays and thesis works and whatnot that I've found from Swedish universities (mostly searched for in hopes to find good literature lists) the only one worth a positive mention is the "Kissing Cousins" essay, about the portrayal of homosexuality in the japanese vs US versions of Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura. Not a brilliant work, but, you know, it actually makes a relevant question, answers it with relevant material and doesn't claim that this is a golden rule of all anime ever (I am looking at you, Susan Napier, you hack)
Last but not least, I have been, let's call it 'heavily encouraged' by my supervisor to include an appendix with a few relevant scenes. Which means that I did the right thing saving all those dreadful magazine editions because they're THAT much easier to copy than a tankobon mwahahahaha~
Lastly, a question... Why, in pretty much all English-language work I can find, do the authors always use the word shojo when they're talking about girls and girls stuff?
It's not like essays and books about Astrid Lindgren borrow the word "flicka" or for that matter "pojke", do they? And, like, hardly anybode bothers to explain why they do this I am confuddled
I am also hyper on coffee, chocolate and too little sleep since I handed in my last exam today (with 3 minutes to spare wheee~) so, uh, excuse the rambleyness of this.
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