Amanda Seaman, Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Languages, Literatures & Cultures
In 1994 Matsuo Yumi created a minor sensation with her series, Murder in Balloontown, which parodied the childbirth culture in Japan.
Several years later, Aoi Natsumi created a detective series with a midwife detective. Through the exploration of these two series, I will explore changes in attitudes toward childbirth in low fertility Japan and offer some thoughts on why detective fiction is a genre which allows this kind of analysis.
Location: FEAS Seminar Room (Mary Houghton Freeman Room) Admission: Free Sponsor: East Asian Studies Program URL: Contact: Ann Gertz, agertz@wesleyan.edu or ext.
