Wednesday, Nov. 11, Portland State University Center for Japanese Studies and The Encorepreneur Café presents Dr. Jon Holt’s My Brother’s Husband: Changing Attitudes towards Same-Sex Marriage in Manga, a lecture focusing on representation of queer identities in Japanese manga.

Gengoroh Tagame’s My Brother’s Husband is a groundbreaking comic book that signaled a change in how Japanese people now think about LGBTQ+ identities, particularly gay marriage. In this beautifully rendered and masterfully paced story, Yaichi, a stay-at-home dad and single parent, must come to grips with the death of his twin brother and find acceptance of his brother’s surviving husband.  For this young Japanese family man, it is not easy to accept that his brother was gay — almost as hard as it is to accept his new brother-in-law. Yaichi reflects on his own assumptions, biases, and homophobic fears in this moving manga that will destroy your preconceptions about comic books as MBH invites us to think between the comic panels, slow down and consider the other side, and imagine a brighter future for Japan and the world where everyone is counted, everyone is equally accepted.

Dr. Jon Holt received his Ph.D. in Japanese Literature from the University of Washington. His research interests include modern Japanese poetry and children’s literature. He wrote his dissertation on the works of Miyazawa Kenji, arguably one of the most important figures in modern Japanese literature. At PSU, Dr. Holt teaches Japanese literature and film as well as upper-division Japanese language courses. His secondary research interests include manga and Japanese Buddhism.

Tickets for this online event are available at Eventbrite on a sliding scale from $5-15.

More information on the Event Page.