BSU Hosts Japanese Culture Appreciation Day

Exploring the Intersections between Black and Japanese Culture, Art and Media

 

MEDIA CONTACT: David Thompson, dlthompson@bowiestate.edu, 301-860-4311

(BOWIE, Md.) – Hoping to fan the embers of Bowie State students’ growing interest in Japanese culture — specifically popular culture products related to anime and manga —Professor Horacio Sierra has planned the university’s first ever Japanese Culture Appreciation Day on Tuesday, April 26 from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The day will include a panel on anime/manga/cosplay and Black culture with BlerDCon CEO George Hilton and Cosplayer Naomi “Afrococoapuffs” Nurse in addition to an Embassy of Japan presentation by Japanese diplomat Taichi Kaneshrio, counsellor of education; a screening of Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro, a 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film; and a Japanese lunch. See the complete Japanese Culture Appreciate Day agenda.

Sierra, associate professor in the department of Language, Literature & Cultural Studies (LL&CS), explains students created the Japanese Culture Appreciation Club on campus in 2017. It was sponsored by one of the librarians, Fusako Ito and members hold monthly meetings to discuss Japanese culture and screen Japanese films.

“Whenever you see students taking initiative in a cultural or academic interest, you need to pay attention to that,” Sierra says. “It’s about allowing them to look at the big picture, what they could do with what they’re learning in the classrooms.”

Several BSU courses complement this interest including Graphic Novels, which covers manga aesthetics and its relationship to graphic novels; Creating Narratives for Film and History of Animation, which discuss Japanese visual tropes and anime’s influence on Black and hip-hop culture.

Sierra secured a $10,000 grant from the Japan-United States Friendship Commission (JUSFC) to fund the cultural appreciation event. The JUSFC is an independent federal agency and BSU is the first HBCU to receive a grant from the commission.

“If you look through the other grant recipients, Columbia and Brown and George Mason,  we’re the first HBCU to receive one,” Sierra notes. “The universities that they usually give this to have Japanese study programs.”

Sierra said he’d like to eventually have Japanese language classes taught in BSU’s LL&CS department as another way to support student interest.

The JUSFC grant also funded a Zoom session for BSU students to learn about the Japan Exchange & Teaching Program. Two black female JET alumnae shared experiences of how students may teach English in Japan after they graduate.

Sierra hopes the Japanese Culture Appreciation Day will broaden student’s cultural horizons to raise awareness that Japan isn’t just a place for them to travel, “but it’s a place for them to work, a place for them to use their skills through NGOs or other opportunities.”

“It’s about giving students the connection, showing them the opportunity, like, ‘How do you do this?’, ‘Who do you network with?’ It’s one way to focus students’ attention,” while they’re busy trying to complete their coursework.

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