Department of Alchemy Audio Archive – Episode 6: Anime in Academia (NYAF)

Posted on 13 October 2010 by Alex Leavitt

On Friday 8 October, I moderated the Anime in Academia panel at the 2010 New York Anime Festival.

The panel featured:

Casey Brienza (PhD student, Sociology, University of Cambridge)
Mikhail Koulikov (Online Bibliography of Anime & Manga Research)
Jennifer Fu (undergrad, Comparative Media Studies, MIT)

You can download the episode or listen to it below:

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New York Anime Festival

Posted on 7 October 2010 by Alex Leavitt

In New York City this weekend, I’ll be attending the New York Anime Festival! For the first time, this annual anime convention will be partnering up with the New York Comic Con for a weekend of… well, we’ll see how crazy it gets.

But if you’re attending, you can meet me! I’ll be speaking on and moderating the Anime in Academia panel. You can see us: Friday, in Room 1E12, from 4:45pm to 5:45pm. The panel also features students, researchers, and published authors: Roland Kelts (“Japanimerica”), Mikhail Koulikov (Online Bibliography of Anime & Manga Research), Casey Brienza (PhD student, Sociology, University of Cambridge), and Jennifer Fu (undergrad, Comparative Media Studies, MIT).

Also, if you’re looking for me on the floor, I’ll be cosplaying the protagonists of Toradora with my lovely girlfriend, @ashleyseto:

Takasu Ryuuji & Aisaka Taiga

Bite-Sized Update

Posted on 8 August 2010 by Alex Leavitt

I didn’t blog at all in July: a failure on my part. However, I’m looking to change that. Hopefully I’ll get a few articles up during the month of August.

But in the meantime, here’s an update of projects I’ve been working on:

- Recently attended Otakon in Baltimore, MD. I gave two talks — What’s the Point of Anime Opening & Ending Themes? and Experiments in the Anime Industry: noitaminA — and moderated another Anime in Academia panel. All three went amazingly well and they were well-received. You can even check out a write-up of my noitaminA panel over at Anime News Network (here).

- I wrote an article for the second issue of the Animerca fanzine! My essay focuses on how Toonami was influential in shaping a very new and different generation of anime fans within the United States. You can read more about the magazine here. And double bonus: it will be sold at Summer Comiket 78!

- This is unofficial, but will be announced soon: I’m working on an English translation and international distribution of the Animerca fanzine! More details to come soon.

- And I haven’t put any work into mediaflo.ws, but I am hoping to begin work on that in September or October.

So, that’s about it. I’m really looking forward to New York Anime Festival in October! And in the meantime, please be on the lookout for some more analytical articles in addition to actual anime reviews and some audio podcasts as well!