Wow is this my first blog of 2021! Where did the time go?!😅😅
For the past few months, I’ve been keeping busy as a bee. This month’s blog features some of the highlights of what I’ve been up to these past three months!🎉🎉
Happy to report, I got this framed now!
1. I was named Master Bootmaker! --No, I didn’t start a new trade, but wouldn’t that be something! A Master Bootmaker is awarded to those “for significant contribution to The Bootmakers of Toronto and the Canadian Sherlockian movement.” Many of you know that I am part of one of the coolest organizations in the world--The Bootmakers of Toronto: The Sherlock Holmes Society of Canada, and I’ve blogged about our past events here and here! See our calendar events for upcoming story meetings and online social events! Become a member and happy sleuthing!
2. It finally happened!! The Association for Asian Studies Conference has come to an end!! I was very fortunate to have been on a panel organized by Rachael Hutchinson that explored representations of disability in video games. I presented alongside Kathryn Hemmann, who analyzed Link’s silence in “Link is Not Silent: Queer Disability Positivity in Fan Readings of the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.” Ben Whaley explored the hikikomori phenomenon in “Alone in the City: Withdrawing and Connecting in The World Ends with You.” And Rachael examined the depiction of blindness in Final Fantasy XV. See our session abstract here!
In my paper, I examined the trope of the autistic savant in Japanese games that loosely adapt the Sherlockian type detective to argue that video game adaptations of the great detective may provide us with a means to confront and make sense of societal and cultural assumptions of the autistic detective to encompass, more diverse understandings that capture the complexities of the literary character outside of its centre of production.
3. Spread the word! Japanese for Nikkei launched the first part of the Heritage Language Series! My childhood friend and business partner have been working busily behind the scenes putting together a curriculum for our new online courses. We are so proud of creating and cultivating an online space for Nikkei learners of Japanese. We’ve also put out a Call for Submissions for an open-access magazine. We’re looking for submissions from those who identify as Nikkei to submit essays, manifestos, poetry etc., about what it means to be Nikkei. We are also open to submissions that reflect and respond to the current wave of anti-Asian hate happening here and elsewhere around the world. Please help us combat racism by sharing your stories of resistance and strength. For the full CFP, see here.
4. A big thank you and many virtual hugs. In early March 2021, I was awarded the Covid-19 Remote Teaching Award for the Department of East Asian Studies. I have my colleagues in Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, my students, my mentor, and my TAs to also thank for this. I continue to receive emails from my students that I taught last semester letting me know how they’re doing and about their future ambitions, and I feel lucky to have been able to teach such a vibrant group of students. As much as they say I inspire them, I’m motivated and inspired by many of my students. In other teaching news, my mentor and I will be launching some entertaining videos that were filmed about a year ago, but I think it’s time to release them into the world! We’ll be posting them in April!
5. Lettuce celebrate! I recently tweeted about an upcoming book titled You Are What You Post: Food and Instagram, edited by Zenia Kish and Emily Contois, and published by the University of Illinois Press, for which I was fortunate to have been able to contribute a chapter. My chapter explores how the cultural phenomenon of “cute” diet foods in Japan is packaged and sold on Instagram through which women curate their online “feminine” identities in empowering but also problematic ways. This forthcoming publication is also quite special as I had such a great experience throughout the publication process thanks to the editors. Can’t wait to see the final product! See what else I have up my sleeve here!