She looks how I feel right now :/

I’ve been struggling with narrowing down my topic for my research thesis paper, and although the presentation of my topic and outline is due next week on the 14th ( meaning I have less than a week to write my statement, my outline, translate it all into Japanese, gather some sources and visual material and arrange it all in PowerPoint…God, just saying it all that is starting to give me a panic attack), I’ve yet to make up my mind about what I want to talk about. It’s not such an easy decision, because I will be working on this for 2 whole years. In a way, this means making a commitment to read, research, write about and discuss this topic for that amount of time, and for someone who likes to juggle various (and very different) ideas all at once, I’m at a loss as to which of those great, interesting ideas to choose and “marry” myself to, at least for those 2 years…or more, if I decide to carry on the research into my PhD.

My first topic of interest was writing about Manga as an Educational Tool: How Comics, Manga and/or Graphic Novels can be used to teach. Any subject, in any language. All that would change is the format; instead of reading a textbook, you would learn advanced calculus or the history of the Roman Empire in a comic book. All facts accurate of course, but at least students will WANT to do their required readings. Or at least, that’s the idea.

But, I realized after reading up on some papers about current research in manga and comic theory that I’m actually more interested in two other very different topics, and their influence in Comics & Manga: Psychology and Feminism.

Yeah, I know it has NOTHING to do with educational uses of comic books, but after I gave it some thought, I realized they’re recurrent themes in my work. I’ve always been fascinated by psychology. The Mind, it’s structure, the fact that you can study something that is immaterial and unquantifiable, and that exists in every human being. The Ego, the Self, the “I”: what is it, how does it work, how does it exist, what creates it? What is the Self? Who are you? Who am I?

Hah, sorry, that came off a bit too existentialist!

And yet I realize, in my work and life, I’ve always veered towards that path of thought.  I love Herman Hesse’s “Steppenwolf”, I read Jung out of fun and I’d be a Buddhist if I could manage to stop eating animal products. The concepts and ideas about the Ego, Existence and Reality has fascinated me from a very early age.

Then, there is the obvious (but often overlooked by myself) fact that I am a woman.  Having been brought up in a household of only women by a single, working mom, I have a pretty good notion of what a strong, self-reliant woman is like. Her virtues and defects, and everything in between. I love heroines such as Lit. Ripley in the movie “Alien” and the heroines of cyberpunk anime, like Kusanagi in “Ghost in The Shell” and Miyazaki’s Nausicaa. I love Ursula K. LeGuin’s stories, and her depiction of smart, independent, yet romantic and spiritual women. She is one of my most important role models, and deeply influences my aspirations as an artist and writer. About a year and a half ago,  I read her essay book, “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places“, and learned she is a self-proclaimed feminist. Then a couple of weeks ago, my teacher gave me a bunch of articles to read about Cyberpunk, and feminism ideologies, namely Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto“, a brilliant study of feminism in postmodern art and literature, keeps popping up everywhere I look.

In the end, I found myself mulling over the following questions:

- Am I a feminist who writes and draws comic books?

- Or moreover, am I an existential feminist who writes and draws graphic novels that deal with post-humanism and women’s role in futuristic dystopian societies?

This last bit is what really intrigues me. But then, how do I make that a research paper? :/