Greetings!

 

On behalf of the International Japanese Studies Group at Kanagawa University's Minatomirai Campus, in Yokohama, Japan, I am pleased to announce the following lecture:

 

Hyperfeminine Harajuku: Exploring Queer KAWAII Practices in a Tokyo Subcultural District 

 

Megan Rose 

Postdoctoral Researcher, Vitalities Lab, University of New South Wales, Sydney

Visiting Scholar, Interfaculty Initiative for Information Studies at the University of Tokyo

 

Wednesday, 21 May 2025 (in person and online)
15:30-17:00
Room 8015
Kanagawa University, Minatomirai Campus
Yokohama

 

Abstract
In this talk I explore the creative practices of Harajuku's subcultures. Harajuku is a town in Tokyo that is a safe space for women, men and gender diverse people as early as the 1970s. Over recent decades, numerous KAWAII fashion subcultures have emerged in this district, each with their own specific conventions, aesthetics, purposes and intents including lolita fashion, decora fashion, yume kawaii, fairy kei, menhera. KAWAII is a significant cultural site for marginalized people to find collective safety and creatively work through their experiences and find a place of belonging. In the increasingly fractured social landscape of Tokyo, an eclectic group of artists, photographers, musicians, and designers come together in a constellation of spectacular bodies to play with KAWAII fashion. Their efforts are supported by underground queer feminist movements of Tokyo that protest, disrupt, and agitate through art, talk, and zine collectives in a blaze of shimmering hot pink.

 

The talk considers the differing ways KAWAII is queered by these groups as an expression of dis/affection, in/dependence and a/sexuality. Queering KAWAII refers to a process of estrangement and de-familiarisation of cuteness as a form of hyperfemininity. As part of global queer femme cultures, hyperfemininity contaminates gender binaries, and exaggerates and pushes the parameters of patriarchal femininity as a form of disruption, experimentation, and reflection. Centred on the affective stories, fashion objects and garments and texts that KAWAII fashion practitioners create, this talk explores the social motivations, politics and ideologies of this subcultural movement. The talk traverses themes of marginality, vulnerability, and women and gender diverse people's defiance in facing structural sexism, sexual violence, queerphobia, and ableism.

To Attend Online (Zoom)

 

Access the Zoom Meeting via the following Meeting ID and Passcode. Preregistration is NOT required to attend via Zoom.

 

Meeting ID: 985 5806 9693 Passcode: KUMMC 

 

To Attend in Person

 

Preregistration via the link below at least a day in advance for those coming in person from outside the KU community is greatly appreciated. If you are coming from off campus, please also register as a Guest at the Information counter near the entrance before coming up to the room.

ご来場の⽅： 神奈川⼤学関係者は事前登録不要です。学外の⽅は前⽇までに下記のリンクにて事前登録をお願いします。当⽇は1FのInformationカウンターでGuest登録を済ませてから、部屋までお越しください。Zoom でのご参加は事前登録不要です。当⽇は上記の Zoom ミーティング ID とパスコードでログインしてください。

 

https://forms.gle/7FF8yLSmDkRFXCBL8

 

Inquiries・お問い合わせ: James Welker jrwelker@kanagawa-u.ac.jp

 

 

Future Lectures

The International Japanese Studies Group at Kanagawa University also plans the following future lecture the remainder of the Japanese academic year. All lectures will be from 3:30 to 5:00 pm at our Minatomirai Campus. Please mark your calendars. 

 

For abstracts and further details, please also refer to the flier here: http://human.kanagawa-u.ac.jp/kenkyu/symposium/pdf/spring_2025.pdf

 

Wednesday, 18 June 2025 (In person only) 
Daniele Durante, Ca' Foscari University & Kanagawa University
Why Is Cross-Dressing Perceived as a Fray in the Social Fabric? A Case Study from Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Japan

 

Wednesday, 23 July 2025 (Hybrid)
Julia C. Bullock, Emory University
Beauvoir in Japan: Japanese Women and The Second Sex

 

Wednesday, 24 September 2025
Chen Yen-yi, Sophia University
Bodies Performed: Images and Worship of Shaka in Medieval Japan.

 

Wednesday, 22 October 2025
Alejandro Morales, Kanagawa University
Monstrous Obsessions: The Undercurrents of Desire in the Aesthetics of Izumi Kyoka

 

Wednesday, 19 November 2025
P.A. George, Kanagawa University
Difficulties of Translating Japanese Literature into Foreign Languages: With Special Reference to Malayalam Translation of Ishikawa Takuboku's Ichiaku no suna (A handful of sand)

 

Wednesday, 17 December 2025
Elise Voyau, Kanagawa University
Japan in Tension After 1968: The Workshop School of Photography in Focus

 

Wednesday, 21 January 2026
Quintana Scherer, Kanagawa University
Yokohama-e and the Imagined Foreigner

 

Details on upcoming lectures will be announced one to two weeks in advance. If you would like to be on our direct email list to be sure you do not miss an announcement, please contact James Welker (jrwelker@kanagawa-u.ac.jp). 

 

Best regards,

 

James Welker

Kanagawa University

===================================================================
|| James Welker  |  ジェームズ・ウェルカー  (he/him)
|| Professor  |  教授 

|| Department of Cross-Cultural Studies, Faculty of Cross-Cultural & Japanese Studies

|| Kanagawa University--Minatomirai Campus

|| 神奈川大学 みなとみらいキャンパス 国際日本学部 国際文化交流学科

|| jrwelker@kanagawa-u.ac.jp  |  jrwelker@me.com

|| Linktree (Professional profiles & social media)

===================================================================

Co-editor of the Global Queer Asias book series (University of Michigan Press)

Kanagawa University International Japanese Studies Talk Series, Spring-Summer 2025

Selected Publications:

--James Welker, Transfiguring Women in Late Twentieth Century Japan: Feminists, Lesbians, and Girls' Comics Artists and Fans (University of Hawai'i Press, 2024)
--James Welker, ed. Queer Transfigurations: Boys Love Media in Asia (University of Hawai'i Press, 2022)
--James Welker, ed. "Queer(ing)," special issue of Mechademia: Second Arc 13, no. 1 (2020)
--ジェームズ・ウェルカー 編著『BLが開く扉　変容するアジアのセクシュアリティとジェンダー』(青土社  2019)  [James Welker, ed., BL Opening Doors: Transfiguring Sexuality and Gender in Asia (Seidosha, 2019)]