Dr. Alisa Freedman
Industry Guest of Honor
Dr. Alisa Freedman is a professor of Japanese literature, cultural studies, and gender at the University of Oregon. Her books include Japan on American TV; Tokyo in Transit: Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road; Women in Japanese Studies: Memoirs from a Trailblazing Generation (edited collection of 32 memoirs); Introducing Japanese Popular Culture (edited textbook featuring 42 trends); annotated translation of Kawabata Yasunari’s The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa; and Modern Girls on the Go: Gender, Mobility, and Labor in Japan (coedited volume). She has published numerous articles for academic and general interest publications, literary translations, and guides to publishing and professionalization skills. She is the Faculty Fellow of a University of Oregon residence hall and has received a national award for her mentorship work. Alisa enjoys presenting at public events like anime cons, cultural festivals, reading groups, and TEDx.
Powerful women have overcome obstacles to create some of Japan’s most famous pop culture. Due to laws, social conventions, business practices, and other factors, women have faced different choices in work and family and different access to education and jobs than people of other genders. Come discuss the stories of women who have shattered norms to change the pop culture world.
We will discuss some of the scariest, most empowered, and charming witches in Japanese culture and what they say about gender, folklore, and society.
We will talk about notable mistakes, missteps, misunderstandings, and mistranslations that have led to great successes and have forever changed manga, anime, and other forms of popular culture. Inspiration comes from unlikely places!
Come learn what makes Japanese TV commercials so weird, creepy, sentimental, cute, and different from those in the US. We watch and discuss ads from commercial history—from Japan’s very first commercial in 1953 to today—that have changed Japanese popular culture and established marketing trends. Commercials do more than advertise products. They tell stories and reflect social desires and fears. They are a social glue and become part of our cultural vocabulary. They give us something to talk about.