This really has been a crazy year for conferences/symposia. I will be giving a paper titled, “Chun-Li’s Qipao: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Fashion in Capcom’s Street Fighter II” on Friday, April 14th at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA). Our panel is Game Studies 8: Performing Identity. You can find us in Pacific Ballroom 14 from 9:45-11:15am at the Marriott Marquis Marina in San Diego, CA.

I’m very excited about this paper — it is the third paper in a series related to arcade fighting games, and a topic that I stumbled into after working on Ainu representations in the game Samurai Shodown. I began to realize that you can’t understand images of Ainu women in these games until you fully come to terms with one of the first successful female fighters in the arcade fighting genre. This paper adopts a slightly different approach than I have previously taken with an emphasis on fashion.

If you are planning to attend the conference, definitely be sure to register on the website. Once you make a profile, you will be able to add this panel to your schedule. Let me know if you are planning to be there so I can say hello! If you are from UC Irvine, there will also be presentations current and former people in Visual Studies (in order of appearance; if I’m missing people, please message me!):

Christina Spiker (graduated), “Chun-Li’s Qipao: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Fashion in Capcom’s Street Fighter II” (Friday, April 14, 9:45am — Pacific Ballroom 14)

Racquel M. Gonzales (current), “Policing Responsible Citizens: The Gamification of Crime Resistance in Children’s Table-Top Games” (Friday, April 14, 11:30am — Pacific Ballroom 14)

Kristen Galvin (graduated), “The New Music Television” (Saturday, April 15, 1:15pm — Pacific Ballroom 17)

Erik Watschke (graduated), “He Made the Whole World Laugh and Cry: Richard Attenborough’s Chaplin (1992) and the New Hollywood Mythologizing of the Early Film Artist” (Saturday, April 15, 1:15pm — La Costa)

Catherine L. Benamou (current professor), “From Joints to Jukeboxes’: Orson Welles and Afro-diasporic Culture as a Conduit for Inter-American Solidarity During World War II” (Saturday, April 15, 1:15pm — La Costa)