OTAKU SUMMIT 2020

Ian Condry

Ian Condry is a cultural anthropologist and Professor of Japanese Culture and Media in the department of Comparative Media Studies / Writing at MIT near Boston, USA.
He is the author of two books, The Soul of Anime and Hip-Hop Japan, both of which have been translated into Japanese.
His current research explores music and musicians after the end of the recording industry with an ethnographic comparison of Tokyo, Boston, and Berlin.
He is the founder of the MIT Cool Japan research project (since 2006) and the MIT Spatial Sound Lab (since 2019).
He received his BA from Harvard and his PhD from Yale.
He has been teaching at MIT since 2002.

Paola Scrolavezza

Paola Scrolavezza, translator and literary critic, is Associate Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture at Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna since 2014.
Her research and teaching interests include women's literature, modern and contemporary Japanese literature, Tokyo urban space through literature and film, light novel and transmediality.
Since 2011 she is the curator of NipPop, a project focused on Japanese contemporary artistic expressions, like cinema, anime and manga.

Recent publications include the following monographs and essays:
Lo schermo scritto. Letteratura e cinema in Giappone (Libreria Editrice Cafoscarina 2012, con M. R. Novielli);
Silhouettes in black: l’ombra del giallo nella scrittura femminile del Giappone contemporaneo (in Japan Pop. Parole, immagini, suoni dal Giappone Contemporaneo, Aracne 2013); Boom du hentai.
Le marché mondialisé du porno japonais à l'ère d'internet (in L'art de l'amour au temps de Geishas, Giunti Editore, 2014);
Kirino Natsuo, The Grotesque Double Life of a Business Woman (in The Poetics of Ageing: Confronting, Resisting, and Transcending Mortality in the Japanese Narrative Arts, «Proceedings of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies», 2015);
Futakuchi otoko: stage performance and text performativity (in Am Scheideweg der Sprachen. Die poetischen Migrationen von Yoko Tawada, Stauffenberg Verlag GmbH, 2016).

Masako Furuichi

Associate professor for Japanese language and culture, School of Foreign Language, Peking University. Ph.D. Born in Japan, Furuichi graduated from a Japanese high school and then traveled alone to study abroad at Peking University for Chinese literature studies. After completing the undergraduate and graduate programs, she completed her doctorate degree in Peking University’s Department of Chinese language and literature in 2008. Upon graduating she became a faculty member at Peking University. She is director of the Meiji University’s Manga Library annex in Peking University. Her most notable published book is Manchukuo Film Studies published by China Jiuzhou Press and she has published multiple papers, such as How Japanese Anime became “Donghua” in China published in the September 2018 issue of Gaiko (Diplomacy) by Toshi Shuppan.

Ichiya Nakamura

Professor, Keio University Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University
President, iUniversity (to be appointed)
President, CiP Association

He also serves as chairman of Japanese government’s committees including Intellectual Property Committee, Pop Culture WG. He is known as president of various consortiums such as CiP, Digital Signage Consortium, and Super-human Sports Society. Also known as founder of NPO CANVAS. Serves as director of companies including Space Shower, YOSHIMOTO KOGYO, etc.
He was Executive Director at Stanford Japan Center (2002-2006),
Visiting Professor at MIT Media Laboratory (1998-2002),
and a policy maker at Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications Japan (1984-1998).
Prior to joining the government, he was a director of a rock band Shonen Knife.

He wrote many books and articles such as
"Contents and National Strategy"（2013, Kadokawa-Books）
"Ichiya Nakamura's New Generation IT Business Evolution"（2011, Discovery 21）etc….