User:Matthew Allen Thorn

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I'm a cultural anthropologist, translator, freelance writer, and comics scholar. I got my B.A. in Creative Writing (with a minor in Women's Studies) from the Pennsylvania State University (Main Campus) in 1987, an M.A. in East Asian Studies from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1989, an M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University in 1993, and an M.Phil. in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University in 1994.

I've been studying and writing about shōjo manga (Japanese girls' and women's comics) since 1986, not so much from the standpoint of textual analysis, but rather from the standpoint of how such comics are created by artists and editors, distributed by publishers and retailers, and used by those who read them. Over the years my interests have expanded to sequential art in general, and particularly the history of sequential art, but gender has remained a central point of reference in all of my work.

I've spent most of my adult life living and working in Japan, and I speak, read, and write Japanese with near-native fluency. I've worked as a professional translator of Japanese since 1990, and have translated thousands of pages of manga.

I've been an associate professor at Kyoto Seika University since 2000, first in the Department of Comic Art (which I helped create), then in the School of Manga Production (founded in 2006). I teach courses on manga culture, manga history, and American comics.

My website is located at http://matt-thorn.com

Mr. Thorn is a Specialty Editor for Comics and Manga, in the Visual Arts Workgroup.