Based out of the University of Florida’s Comics Studies track within the the Department of English, the Comix-Scholars Discussion List (COMIX-SCHOLARS-L) hosts lively and diverse free, digital conversation between subscribed members invested in comics as a field of study. And sometimes that discussion turns to religion and comics, as it did on Wednesday, November 18th when S&S’s own Beth Davies-Stofka asked the List:
I’m tying up some loose ends on a writing project that relates to scholarship focused on religion in comics.
I have about 250 words that I can devote to the topic of the study of religion in Indian comics. I have Karline McLain’s book, India’s Immortal Comic Books, which I am regarding as a kind of “first” in the field of religious studies.
But I’d like to know if there is work being done on the subject in languages other than English.
Anyone know?
Beth included a second message also noting, “I have Jolyon Baraka Thomas’s book, Drawing on Tradition, which I am regarding as a kind of ‘first’ in the field of religious studies.”
Corey Creekmur was the first to respond that day:
Hi Beth:
There are at least 3 books (and some good articles) on Amar Chitra Katha (ACK), including McLain’s excellent one. All necessarily discuss religion to some extent.
See also:
Nandini Chandra, The Classic Popular: Amar Chitra Katha, 1967-2007 (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2008)
Deepa Sreenivas, Sculpting the Middle Class: History, Masculinity and the Amar Chitra Katha (New Delhi: Routledge India, 2010).
For some earlier essays, see:
John Stratton Hawley, ‘The Saints Subdued: Domestic Virtue and National Integration in Amar Chitra Katha,’ and Frances W. Pritchett, ‘The World of Amar Chitra Katha’ in Media and the Transformation of Religion in South Asia, eds. Lawrence A Babb and Susan S. Wadley, eds. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995): 107-134 and 76-106.
Nicholas Theisen then added, in response to Beth’s earlier inquiry:
Is there anything in particular you’re looking for? The obvious answer is yes, but for Japanese, at any rate, the possible range of texts is too massive to cover in a few hundred words. There are several books on Miyazaki’s Naushika alone all of which tackle the question of religion in some way.
Beth responded to Corey’s input appreciatively:
Thank you Corey! Well, if this doesn’t complete my task, what could?
Would it also be true to say that there are some excellent studies in Hindi that await translation?
But Darby Orcutt didn’t feel there was good news to share:
Probably not. There’s very little scholarly activity on the topic in Hindi – basically none at least as of 5 or 6 years ago when I last taught this material in my Religion & Comics course. Some polemic, and at least one self-aggrandizing study by the creators of ACK…
Corey concurred, “Right — on the whole, the comics scene in India is conducted in English. ” And, I piped in with, “I know Jeff Brackett is doing/planning some work in this area…”
Ron Stewart helpfully elaborated:
As Nicholas has pointed out there are probably oodles of studies in Japanese that look at religion (in varying degrees) in manga or anime.
I’m pretty sure a lot has been written for example on Tezuka’s Buddha (but most non-academic). There are also some who claim the historical roots of manga are in Buddhist “etoki.” However, over the past 12 years of attending the annual manga conferences in Japan, I don’t recall having heard anyone present specifically on religion in manga. You should however be able to find the English table of contents for the Japan Society for the Studies in Cartoons and Comics’ journal Manga Kenkyu (Manga Studies) 2002~2015, somewhere on the web to confirm this.
A couple of suggestions that have come to mind now:
One, is from my bookshelf, an article by Natsume Fusanosuke on Buddhist manga in an 2008 edition of a Buddhist journal, which for some reason is ignored by Jolyon’s book.
Natsume Fusanosuke. ” ‘Bukyo manga’ no omoshirosa [The enjoyment of ‘Buddhist Manga’]” Daihorin vol.75 no.11, 2008, pp.134-139
Another thing you might want to try is going through the Japanese national academic repository database (http://ci.nii.ac.jp/en), in its English setting where, even without knowing Japanese, you might get some idea of what has been written related to manga and religion as sometimes English translations of article and dissertation titles are included in the database.
For example:
Imai Hidekazu.”The image of “Buddha” in the modern consumption society: Buddha by Osamu Tezuka and Seinto・Oniisan by Hikaru Nakamura [in Japanese] ” Journal of Rengeji Institute of Buddhist Studies (4), 220-202, 2011
The Japanese results for a search of “manga” and “religion” amongst articles are here: http://ci.nii.ac.jp/search?q=%E5%AE%97%E6%95%99%E3%80%80%E3%83%9E%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AC&range=0&count=20&sortorder=1&type=0
Only a few results but it includes a paper by Jolyon in Japanese in 2008 in Modern Religion journal.
This repository is by no means comprehensive but if you try a few variations of search terms you may get a few more hits. Also some of the larger university repositories will have English searchable pages (I think).
You might also want to contact Dr. Rebecca Suter of Sydney University about references, as she did a research project a few years back on cultural representations of Christianity (actually a specific historical period of Christianity) which encompassed manga and anime representations.
Quite the response! Even if not always public, discussion and dialogue among scholars on religion and comics still abounds.