CFP: MECHADEMIA 3: Limits of the Human

Mechademia is a new journal, one I'm very much looking forward to reading. It joins our list of academic journals about comic art.

MECHADEMIA 3: Limits of the Human
Editor: Frenchy Lunning
Associate Editors: Thomas LaMarre, Michelle Ollie, Christopher Bolton

Mechademia is a new annual refereed journal from the University of Minnesota Press, a forum for critical work on anime, manga, and fan arts. We are seeking submissions on topics linked to Japanese manga or anime, as well as related material from fields like fashion, film studies, fine art, game design, and American or global fan culture, among others. Mechademia's goal is to promote critical thinking, writing, art, and creative activity that can bridge the current gap between professional, academic, and fan communities and discourses.

To this end, we seek contributions in a variety of formats, by authors from a wide range of backgrounds and fields. Contributors should endeavor to write across disciplinary boundaries, presenting their unique knowledge in all its sophistication, but with a broad audience in mind. Each issue will have a theme that will focus the conversation and connect different pieces, but we encourage contributors to interpret these themes broadly in order to keep the way open for new and original kinds of work. Superior submissions that fall outside the theme may also be considered if space permits.

We are currently accepting submissions for Mechademia #3, the theme of which is "Limits of the Human." This issue will look at the way anime, manga, and related media have probed the contours human identity and activity-by imagining non-human others; by positing breakthroughs in human capability; or by showing us our own limitations as readers and viewers, among many other strategies. Possible topics include cyborg theory; new fan species; animalism and animalization; undead and the occult; speed and distance; phenomenologies and ontologies, etc. And this list is only a beginning: contributors are encouraged to interpret the theme broadly and contribute their own original perspective on the topic.

The submission deadline for issue #3 is January 5, 2007.

Submissions should be approximately 5000 words or less. Mechademia uses Chicago style documentation, though other formats are acceptable at the submission stage. Files may be sent as attachments to submissions at mechademia.org.

Detailed information about the journal's mission and submission procedures is available on our web site at http://mechademia.org.