Talk Abstract: Mizuki Shigeru (1922-2015), one of Japan’s preeminent creators of manga, known for his interest in tricksy monsters (bakemono), posthumously published a story (2018) about Little Miss Cup Cap (Hachikazuki), a fairytale character routinely described as “the Japanese Cinderella.” This talk explores the surprising transnational nature both of the perennially favorite children’s story behind the manga as well as of the manga form itself.
Adam L. Kern started reading manga as a high-school exchange student outside Tokyo. His subsequent experiences in Japan include a brief stint as an editorial intern at Kōdansha, the largest publisher of manga, as well as research affiliations at The National Institute of Japanese Literature, the University of Kyoto, and the University of Tokyo. Having earned his Ph.D. at Harvard, where he served on the faculty for close to a decade, Kern is currently Professor of Japanese Literature and Visual Culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His manga course there was profiled in a feature-length documentary film that aired on primetime TV in Japan. Kern’s book on the history of manga, titled Manga from the Floating World (Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), was reissued in 2019 in a second edition with a new preface.
