Victoria Rahbar is a PhD student at the University of British Columbia School of Information. Rahbar’s research interests include cultural representation in manga, seeking out narratives around disability and neurodiversity, and manga in postsecondary education and academic library collections. She applies her research to the needs of libraries, speaking on manga for teen and adult readers at academic conferences and anime conventions. Other areas of interest include accessibility, censorship, localization, materiality, and the reading experience. Previously she worked in academic libraries.

Academic Librarianship | Digital Humanities | Manga Studies

Rahbar, Victoria. “Transitioning to University Life with Manga – A Guide for First Year Experience Librarians.” Booklist’s Guide to Graphic Novels in Libraries: 2024, 2024.

Rahbar, Victoria. Review of Tōjisha Manga: Japan’s Graphic Memoirs of Brain and Mental Health, by Yoshiko Okuyama. ImageText, 15 (1), 2024.

Rahbar, Victoria. Review of Ms. Marvel’s America: No Normal, edited by Jessica Baldanzi and Hussein Rashid. ImageText, 13 (2), 2023.

Rahbar, Victoria. “A Manga Book Display for the Accessibility Resource Center.” Booklist’s Guide to Graphic Novels in Libraries: 2022, 2022.

Rahbar, Victoria. “Report on Japanese-Language Manga Magazine Survey.” Journal of East Asian Librarianship, no. 172, 2021.

• Cordula and Gunter Paetzold Fellowship, University of British Columbia 2024 – 2026
• Frederick Luis Aldama Emerging BIPOC Comics Studies Leadership Award, Comics Studies Society 2024
• Tuition Scholarship, Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) 2023
• Faculty of Arts Graduate Award, University of British Columbia 2022 – present
• President’s Academic Excellence Initiative PhD Award, University of British Columbia 2022 – present
• Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship for Japanese, Stanford University, 2019 – 2021

Rahbar is available for invited talks on manga and manga in libraries.