Dr. Khursten Santos
Khursten Santos is an Assistant Professor in Japanese Studies at Ateneo de Manila University in Manila. A cultural historian by profession, she examines the gender histories of women in Asia, specifically their transformative engagement with popular culture. Her current research examines doujinshi culture and how it is changing fan literacies and practices in Southeast Asia in the last fifteen years. She currently enjoys the BL works of Syundei and Harada and has been recently recruited into ARMY.
Dr. Fusami Ogi
Fusami Ogi is a Professor in the Department of English at Chikushi Jogakuen University, Japan. She has been a leader of the Women’s MANGA Research Project in Asia since 2009. She is the author of Women’s Manga Studies (2015, Seikyusha, Japan), and the co-editor of Women’s Manga in Asia and Beyond: Uniting Different Cultures and Identities (Fusami Ogi, Rebecca Suter, Kazumi Nagaike, and John. A Lent, 2019, Palgrave) and Shōjo Across Media: Exploring “Girl” Practices in Contemporary Japan (Jaqueline Berndt, Kazumi Nagaike, and Fusami Ogi, 2019, Palgrave).
Yeehun
Yeehun is a freelance illustrator and works as full time as a web developer. She does minimal to decorative art and has been featured in Playboy and collaborated with other media, cafe and merchandise brands. She has also brought her art to several countries, including Malaysia, Japan, Australia and Paris.
Dr. Thomas Baudinette
Thomas Baudinette is Lecturer in Japanese Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. A cultural anthropologist of Japan’s queer popular culture, he is currently researching the transnational spread of BL, bara and Japanese gay pornography in Southeast Asia (including Thailand and the Philippines). He is a huge fan of the Thai BL couple TayNew and is also a massive ARMY and Atiny, who actively writes slash fanfics for Korean boyband ATEEZ.
Dr. James Welker
James Welker is an associate professor in the Department of Cross-Cultural Studies at Kanagawa University. His research examines gender and sexuality in postwar and contemporary Japan. He is the author of Transfigurations: Feminists, Lesbians, and Shōjo Manga Fans in Late Twentieth-Century Japan (Hawai‘i, forthcoming), and co-editor of Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan (Mississippi, 2015; with Mark McLelland, Kazumi Nagaike, and Katsuhiko Suganuma), Rethinking Japanese Feminisms (Hawai‘i, 2018; with Julia C. Bullock and Ayako Kano), Queer Voices from Japan (Lexington, 2007; with Mark McLelland and Katsuhiko Suganuma), and “Of Queer Import: Sexualities, Genders and Rights in Asia,” with Lucetta Kam (Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, no 14, 2006).
Peggy Sim
Be tickled pink as talented multidisciplinary artist Peggy Sim a live Art Jam! Peggy is a talented and passionate artist, animator, and cosplayer based in Singapore who has been very supportive of the Philippine BL scene. Let’s all give Peggy a warm welcome on her second year at BLush Convention!
Knife Party
Knife Party is a group of non-Chinese-speaking fans neck-deep in Chinese BL fandom. They will be sharing experiences on being reliant on the kindness of internet strangers for subtitles, begging friends overseas to buy merch for them, and other challenges.