Björn-Ole Kamm

Björn-Ole Kamm has always been interested in knowledge, especially about extraordinary things and the fantastic. Interested in the making of social realities and social boundaries, he conducted a study on the so-called boys' love genre to show the diversity of its Japanese and German readers and producers (Uses and Gratifications of Boys' Love Manga; Kovac, 2010). Following up on this research and together with Patrick W. Galbraith and Thiam Huat Kam, he edited a volume on the 'otaku' discourse in Japan, including original Japanese contributions translated into English for the first time (Debating Otaku in Contemporary Japan; Bloomsbury, 2015). Today, Björn-Ole Kamm is Senior Lecturer at the Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Japan. Supported by fellowships from the German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo (DIJ), the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation and Kyoto University, his current work focuses on dynamics of in- and exclusion in networked communities of interest, the agency of stereotypes and of 'cultural brokers' within the transcultural sphere of roleplaying games.