via joi
Last week on Friday, I met with Professor Henry Jenkins in his office at MIT’s Comparative Media Studies department about my future in graduate school.
Way back in the fall semester of 2007, I discovered the Comparative Media Studies website, and from there on my life would change as I switched gears from my English major to following everything happening with Internet studies at MIT, Harvard, and other schools attempting similar research. I would go on to attend ROFLcon, make my way over to Harvard for the Berkman @ 10 conference, and then eventually join teams with the likes of Students for Free Culture, MIT’s YouTomb project, the varied escapades of Tim Hwang and company, and Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, among others. After my study abroad in Kyoto, Japan during the fall semester of 2008, I would return to Boston finally to focus my interests on Internet culture, Japanese animation, and fan studies, hopefully pulling the three topics together in a relevant doctoral program for graduate school.
So, last Friday I met Henry to speak about his decision to move from Comparative Media Studies at MIT to the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. Since I had already pegged MIT’s CMS program as my ideal goal, I felt it valid to ask Henry about following him to SC. Unfortunately, he replied with an answer I expected: He will not know much about the management and organization of the program until he begins teaching there this autumn. Thankfully, he was able to advise me on a few potential research opportunities, recommend a number of other solid graduate programs in the States as well as abroad, and affirm that I have indeed been taking the correct steps (especially spending the next year gaining experience in the field to research my book). He did also provide an excellent piece of advice that I had (perhaps a bit foolishly) overlooked in my pursuits.
That advice was this: Immerse yourself in the popular culture.
I have one year before I’ll even be able to apply for graduate school, study abroad, and research abroad. However, on top of securing a job, researching current trends, and studying theory, Henry proposed spending as much time reading manga, watching anime, following Internet memes, and the like. I have a year, and he said one of the most beneficial things I can do is to engross in the popular culture and understand it inside out, in order to speak about it, establish arguments, and defend theses.
So, thank you, Henry. I’ll take your words to heart. I’ll be sure to keep in touch if I gain the chance to opportunity to study with you.
Given that you’re coming at this from the ‘inside’–as a preexisting fan–I think you already have a head start on the whole pop-culture immersion thing, which is also probably why you didn’t think of it in such explicit terms (because you’re living it). Along similar lines, however, I would recommend that you approach/explore the media and fandoms surrounding them with both a) extra depth and b) less discrimation (meaning, don’t be picky).
a) If you encounter an interesting sub-category of fandom, dig deeply into it. Really find out what people are doing and why within super-specific fandom niches.
b) Seek out and learn about anime, manga, and parts of fandom that you would normally avoid (based on your personal preferences/taste). Get a good overview of what other people are into so as to broaden your perspective on fandom. That way, when you have to decide on the specific topic you want to focus on, you’ll be able to make an informed decision, and you’ll be able to talk about things in a broader context.
That said, good luck, and hope to see you at AX this year!
I do indeed plan to approaching and exploring with much depth, because (as Toshio Okada has stated many times before) we need to explore all facets of the medium in order to understand it.
At the moment, I feel like I’m not trying necessarily to avoid any part of the anime medium, or I suppose the fandom for the matter as well. When I look at anime blogs, I tend to see a lot of focus put on more recent works, and in the key of Anime World Order I’m all for looking at much older stuff and attempting to examine the full spectrum of media available.
As someone who’s already immersed in anime culture and fandom, where have you been getting information from other than anime blogs and conventions? Have you been visiting anime clubs or surfing on forums? Contacting people involved in some of the more important conventions or websites based on anime?
I troll a number of forums, listen to podcasts, read blogs, etc. etc. I haven’t been to anime clubs in a while, but I have been attending a number of conventions for the past few years.
Recently, given the effort I’ve made setting up research for my book, I’m spent a considerable amount of time networking with academics, and I’m going to begin sending out messages to con heads, industry folk, and other fans. There’s certainly a lot you can do just with Google and an email address!
That sounds wonderful!
I’m wondering now – in the process of immersion, how do you plan to distinguish Alex, the researcher, from Alex, the fan? What kind of measures will you take to ensure that you are gaining multiple perspectives and insights, and picking up on all facets of the anime/manga-verse? Do you have a methodology planned, or is “method” a farcical framework that we establish as researchers to give ourselves comfort in a logical process that will produce results?
That’s a really key, yet difficult, question. I sometimes feel that in the near future we will see an increasing trend in (as Henry calls himself) aca-fans, just because we grew up with such high access to popular culture*. Of course, in the long run, I think that even though my work is on par with other anime bloggers (eg.), I will continue looking at all sides of the medium and fandom while constantly striving to approach new topics and issues.
I don’t believe I currently have a methodology planned, but I don’t feel like I need one at the moment. The great thing about the blog is that I can use the format of the essay to explore all the topics I’m interested in until I reach graduate school, where I will of course have to set a methodology in stone for my dissertation.
* I sometimes feel like arguing a similar stance when talking about the “digital native” phenomenon. When I/we/they grow up, I think that most everyone will have gotten used to technology, just because it was such an inherent part of our childhood, unlike adults today who had to integrate it into their lives. Contrary to the generation gap, I think we’ll eventually see a separation of access (and hence digital literacy), perhaps producing our own Internet-related Newtypes.
This is absolutely great that you were able to talk about this with Professor Jenkins.
I would say that, contrary to his “aca-fandom”, which is rooted in a popular culture that emanated from the society he is living in (the US society), your immersion would be into the world of fans of a popular culture that is imported from abroad, so it isn’t exactly the same as his situation. You are dealing with a world of commercial and artistic contents considered foreign to the society where you are evolving, so I guess that you won’t be going into exactly the same kind of immersion. Or will you also go back to Japan and study the Japanese audiovisual entertainment industry from “inside” the society that it emanated from (keeping in mind that the inside/outside issue is always a difficult one, though)?
By the way, it’s been such a long time since I have heard a student talk about his professor using his first name! ;-) When I came to the US to do my Bachelor, it took me a year before I was able to do that, since I had been so conditioned to talk about my teachers and professors as Mr. or Mrs. “last name”. Moreover, since English doesn’t make a difference between the familiar and the more distant form of “you”, I just had the constant feeling that I was actually being overfamiliar with them.
It’s definitely a good point to make in that I’m approaching a popular culture that is not primarily targeted at me, the American fan. However, the American fandom has appropriated the anime medium to such an extent that we’ve created our own approaches to the popular culture and in a way translated it into a new variety of American pop culture. When I return to Japan, I don’t necessarily feel the need to study anime, manga, and the fandom in terms of Japanese reception, but a comparison would definitely be nice, if possible. However, I am definitely interested in the early days of anime fandom, with doujinshi mailing circles, fanzines, and the like.
About the name thing… yeah, it’s still a bit strange for me as well! But when I’ve been sending out emails to network, I have been using a first-name basis. There are certain degrees of politeness for both first names and actual titles (like Professor), of course.
Hey Alex! I’m wondering what Henry’s list of schools included… Any PhD programs? :)