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Podcast: New Books in Popular Culture
Episode: James Welker, "Transfiguring Women in Late Twentieth-Century Japan: Feminists, Lesbians, and Girls' Comics Artists and Fans" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)
Description: Transfiguring Women in Late Twentieth-Century Japan: Feminists, Lesbians, and Girls' Comics Artists and Fans (U Hawaii Press, 2024) examines three dynamic and overlapping communities of women and adolescent girls who challenged Japanese gender and sexual norms in the 1970s and 1980s. These spheres encompassed activists in the ƫman ribu (womenâs liberation) movement, members of the rezubian (lesbian) community, and artists and readers of queer shoÌjo manga (girlsâ comics). Individually and collectively, they found the normative understanding of the category âwomenâ untenable and worked to redefine and expand its meaning by transfiguring ideas, images, and practices selec...