The conference aims to bring together experts from a wide variety of fields to spark an interdisciplinary discussion on Japanese popular culture.

The role of popular culture in the modern world has been constantly increasing. It is not an exaggeration to state that pop culture has become an integral part of our reality. Therefore, it is not surprising that popular culture has become a subject of intensified research interest.

The rise in global popularity of Japanese pop culture, with its diversity and richness is especially worth investigating. With an ever increasing wave of manga, anime, games, and dramas produced every year, Japan has been one of the most culturally productive countries in the world, which makes it a perfect subject of study.

The importance of Japanese popular culture was also noted by the Japanese government, which has adopted the brand of „Cool Japan” as a tool to use the potential of popular culture as soft power.

Now, more than ever, there is an emerging need to study this phenomenon from different perspectives and find the answers to the following questions:

• how do Japanese perceive their own pop culture
• how do Japanese use their pop culture as soft power
• how do representatives of other countries understand and approach Japanese pop culture
• how and why does Japanese pop culture arouse interest around the world

The Pop-real 2017 conference is an attempt to bring together experts from a wide variety of fields to spark an interdisciplinary discussion on Japanese popular culture. The organisers hope that this meeting will serve as an opportunity to interact with globally distinguished scholars and lead to fruitful research collaboration in the future. The conference will start with a special presentation by the Keynote speaker, Professor Chida Hiroyuki from Tōkyō Gakugei University.

The conference welcomes submissions of presentations and papers from various fields of expertise related to the topic of Japanese popular culture: researchers, scholars, teachers, professional artists, and graduate students are strongly encouraged to apply. Student submissions must be co-authored by their academic supervisors.

For more information, visit the conference website.