Victoria Rahbar is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia School of Information. Rahbar’s research interests include cultural representation in manga, studying 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, manga literacy, and the reading experience. Previously, she worked in academic libraries.

Rahbar’s dissertation is tentatively titled Understanding Neurological Difference: A Study of Young Manga Readers in Canada. The dissertation project aims to illuminate expressions of developmental disabilities, or neurological difference, in translated digital manga from Japan and to investigate to what extent young neurodivergent readers relate to and are motivated to read comic narratives inclusive of neurological difference. The research design takes the form of a three-part sequential inquiry using qualitative and arts-based methods within the empirical context of the Metro Vancouver Regional District and the cultural contexts of Canada and Japan. The dissertation is co-supervised by Dr. Eric M. Meyers (iSchool) and Dr. Sharalyn Orbaugh (Department of Asian Studies).

Since coming to the University of British Columbia School of Information, Rahbar has increasingly engaged with arts-based research, notably non-visual, tactile, and multisensory engagement with popular culture objects and accessible comics. She has conducted museum touch tour like workshops with and on behalf of the Association for Asian Studies, Dōjin Arts, UBC Library, UBC Department of Asian Studies, UBC iSchool, UBC Pop Culture Cluster, and the Vancouver Art Gallery. Rahbar’s fellow facilitators have included UBC librarians and faculty members as well as staff from grunt gallery and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Rahbar is affiliated with the Pop Culture Custer and the Comics Studies Cluster.

They are the project lead for Understanding Through Comics: A Comics and Comics Studies Journal Club, a Strategic Equity & Anti-Racism (StEAR) Enhancement Fund-funded project that explores issues of equity and social justice through graphic narratives.

She is also a member of The PhD Collab: Arts-Based Interventions in Graduate Research, which is generously funded through a two-year pilot program from Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies (G+PS).

Academic Librarianship | Disability Studies | Manga Studies | Multisensory Art

Recent Publications

Rahbar, V. (2026). On bandes dessinées québécoises (Quebec comics) and manga (Japanese comics) in translation: A study of blindness arts and culture in Boum’s The Jellyfish (La méduse) and Uoyama’s Love’s in Sight! (Yankī-kun to Hakujō Gāru). In C. Lie, A. Lucchesi, & J. Alaniz (Eds.), Palgrave Handbook of Disability in Comics and Graphic Narratives. Palgrave Macmillan. [in-press]

Ramírez Rahbar, V. (2025). Health & wellness in the community: The art of Cindy Lozito. RicanWritings.

Rahbar, V. (2024). Transitioning to university life with manga: A guide for first year experience librarians. Booklist’s Guide to Graphic Novels in Libraries: 2024.

Rahbar, V. (2024). Review of Tōjisha manga: Japan’s graphic memoirs of brain and mental health, by Yoshiko Okuyama. ImageText 15(1).

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

Rahbar, V. (2022). A manga book display for the Accessibility Resource Center. Booklist’s Guide to Graphic Novels in Libraries: 2022.

Rahbar, V. (2021). Report on Japanese-language manga magazine survey. Journal of East Asian Librarianship, no. 172.

Arts-Based Workshops and More

Rahbar, V., & Dōjin Arts. (2026, March). Multisensory art workshop with Dōjin Arts at the Nitobe Memorial Garden Tea House [Lecture & Touch tour]. Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference 2026, Vancouver, Canada.

Rahbar, V. (2026, March). Accessible arts and popular culture workshop: Teaching art by touch [Lightning talk]. Pop Pedagogies Lightning Talks, Vancouver, Canada.

Rahbar, V. (2025 December – 2026 January). Accessible comics & blindness arts: An understanding through comics exhibition[Exhibition]. University of British Columbia iSchool, Vancouver, Canada. Sole curator. Project website https://pop-culture.arts.ubc.ca/comics-studies/understanding-through-comics/.

Rahbar, V. (2025, November). Accessible arts and popular culture workshop [workshop]. University of British Columbia iSchool Community Learning Day, Vancouver, Canada. Event Lead & Pop-Up Exhibition Curator. Project website https://pop-culture.arts.ubc.ca/accessible-arts-and-popular-culture-workshop/.

Rahbar, V., Shriver, C., & Kitayama Yen, T. (2025, February). Untitled: Multisensory art appreciation, Ainu and Japanese popular culture, and the universal museum in Japan with tactile exercise[Special class session]. ASIA 590-36 – Thinking with the Body: Embodied, Sensory and Non-Representational Methodologies (Dr. Ayaka Yoshimizu), UBC Department of Asian Studies & UBC Libraries, Vancouver, Canada.

Rahbar, V.,Shriver, C., & Kitayama Yen, T. (2024, March). Untitled: Multisensory art appreciation, Ainu and Japanese popular culture, and the universal museum in Japan with tactile exercise [Special class session]. ASIA 590-36 – Thinking with the Body: Embodied, Sensory and Non-Representational Methodologies (Dr. Ayaka Yoshimizu), UBC Department of Asian Studies & UBC Libraries, Vancouver, Canada.

Lai, R., Rahbar, V., Sunandan Honisch, S., Bulk, L. Y., & Bokenfohr, S. (2024, January). Imagining multisensory art: Learning from objects; literacy and inclusion [Lecture & touch tour]. UBC Connects + Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada. Core Planning Team Member & Event Speaker.

• PhD Collab Award with Elizabeth “Biz” Nijdam, Anita Sinner, Harini Rajagopal, Marie-France Berard, Victoria Rahbar, Fabiola del Rincón Fernández, Imroze Singh, and Manisha Tripathy, University of British Columbia Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies (G+PS) 2026 – 2027
• Strategic Equity & Anti-Racism (StEAR) Enhancement Fund, University of British Columbia Equity & Inclusion Office 2025 — 2026
• The Piternick Research Award, University of British Columbia iSchool 2025 – 2026
• Cordula and Gunter Paetzold Fellowship, University of British Columbia 2024 – 2026
• Pop Pedagogies Award, University of British Columbia Pop Culture Cluster 2025
• Frederick Luis Aldama Emerging BIPOC Comics Studies Leadership Award, Comics Studies Society 2024
• Connects at Robson Square Program Funding with Ruanne Lai, Victoria Rahbar, Stefan Sunandan Honisch, Laura Yvonne Bulk, and Stephanie Bokenfohr, University of British Columbia 2023
• Partnership Recognition and Exploration Fund with Ruanne Lai, Victoria Rahbar, Stefan Sunandan Honisch, Laura Yvonne Bulk, and Stephanie Bokenfohr, University of British Columbia 2023
• 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.