This website is part of an SSHRC-funded project that traces the representation of Jewish identity and narratives of the Holocaust drawn by popular manga artists from 1964 to today!
Welcome to my website! I’m an Associate Professor of Japanese in the School of Languages, Linguistics, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Calgary. Sketching Semitism was born out of my interest in manga’s ability to tell narratives of the Holocaust that both comment on Jewish persecution as well as Japan’s own experience of WWII. I’m interested in extending this discussion of the Holocaust into the sphere of East Asian visual culture for the first time to understand more about the evolution and affective capabilities of manga as a medium.
My forthcoming book Toward a Gameic World: New Rules of Engagement from Japanese Videogames (University of Michigan Press) examines the ways in which Japanese games simulate social issues and national traumas while prompting players’ emotional engagement, self-reflection, and development of real-world skills. My current research projects center on Jewish identities and narratives of the Holocaust in postwar manga, and on racial politics in the oeuvre of Japan’s “God of Manga” Tezuka Osamu!
