The Mechademia series continues twice a year from the University of Minnesota Press, edited by Frenchy Lunning and Sandra Annett. Mechademia: Second Arc is a scholarly journal devoted to the study of East Asian popular cultures, broadly conceived. Forthcoming issues and current calls for papers (CFPs) are as follows. (All issues are dated in Minneapolis, i.e. the northern hemisphere.)
Future Issues
Vol. 18.2: Studio Ghibli, guest ed. Rayna Denison and Jacqueline Ristola
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- Coming summer 2026
Vol. 19.1: “Semiosis/Symbiosis,” guest ed. Vincenzo Idone Cassone
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- Coming winter 2026
Vol. 19.2: Graphic Narratives, guest ed. Deborah Shamoon
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- Coming summer 2027
Vol. 20.1: “Gametides,” guest ed. Rachael Hutchinson
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- Coming winter 2027
Vol. 20.2: Erotic Bodies – Hentai, BL, and Beyond, guest ed. Tom Baudinette
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- Coming summer 2028
Calls for Papers
All submissions should be sent to the Mechademia submissions editor. Please indicate the title of the volume you are submitting to as follows: “Submission–[volume name]” in the subject line. Submit two copies of your article as a Word document. One of these copies should be anonymized: do not include your name anywhere in the article, and remove the author’s name from the document properties (look under “Info” in Word). Named citations of your own work are acceptable, provided you do not use first-person language to discuss the work in question. Submissions should be 5,000-7,000 words and follow the Mechademia Style Guide, which is based on the Chicago Manual of Style. Figures are limited to eight per essay; image permissions are the responsibility of authors upon acceptance. Figures should be at least 300DPI and in either TIFF or JPG formats submitted in a separate file and not embedded in the text, with captions, submitted in a separate Word document.
Call for Papers: Vol. 20.1: “Gametides” — The Cross-currents of Digital Play in East Asia
What do the tides of digital games wash up on the shore—or take out to sea?
This special issue of Mechademia: Second Arc explores the fluid movements, exchanges, and rhythms of digital gaming across East Asia. As waves of technological innovation, cultural production, and player communities move through and beyond national and linguistic borders, they create distinctive patterns of engagement—currents that surge, recede, and return in ever-changing forms.
The notion of “gametide” evokes more than the ebb and flow of global media or the circulation of franchises; it suggests a living ecology of play shaped by time, environment, and affect. Like the sea’s cycles, gaming habits and industries respond to local rhythms—school years, work schedules, internet access, and cultural expectations about leisure and productivity. The “tide” also hints at accumulation and erosion: what digital games deposit on the cultural shore (new narratives, aesthetics, and communities) and what they take away (attention, time, tradition, or older media forms).
We invite papers that investigate how digital gaming moves within and across East Asia, attending to the material, affective, and temporal dimensions of play. How do the tides of gaming connect disparate regions—Korea’s PC bangs, Japan’s mobile gacha economies, China’s esports arenas, Southeast Asia’s community-driven mods, or Indonesia’s burgeoning indie scenes? What residues do these movements leave in the cultural landscape, and what undertows—censorship, commercialization, gendered labor—pull against them?
Possible areas of inquiry include:
• Flows and drifts: Transnational movements of genres, aesthetics, and production practices across East Asia and into global circuits.
• Affective tides: Games as spaces of comfort, stimulation, or community; as an escape in times of crisis; emotional economies of digital play.
• Temporalities of play: How do players and designers structure daily or seasonal rhythms around games?
• Ecologies of gaming: Interactions among developers, players, technologies, and infrastructures—how do these shape regional gaming environments? How have historical contexts of imports and exports affected game culture?
• Cultural sedimentation: What remains after the wave passes—fan archives, memes, mod cultures, or discarded technologies?
• Value and time: How are games positioned in social discourse—as leisure, addiction, creative labor, or cultural capital? How have these valuations shifted over time and/or between regions?
• Media shorelines: Intersections of games with anime, manga, film, or art practices that blur the boundaries of digital play.
By thinking with the sea—its tides, flows, and ecologies—this issue seeks to map an oceanic model of game culture that resists static borders and emphasizes connection, change, and return. We encourage contributions that take an interdisciplinary approach in charting the contours of these gametides across East Asia’s diverse shores.
The deadline for submission of essays for this volume is July 1, 2026. All submissions should be sent to submissions@mechademia.net. Please indicate the title of the volume you are submitting to by writing “Submission to SA20.1” in the subject line. Submit two copies of your article as a Word document. One of these copies should be anonymized: remove the author’s name from the document properties (look under “Info” in Word) and do not include your name anywhere in the article. Named citations of your own work are acceptable, provided you do not use first-person language to discuss the work in question.
Submissions should be 5,000-7,000 words, including abstract and citations. They should follow the Mechademia Style Guide, which is based on the Chicago Manual of Style. Figures (and separately submitted captions) are limited to eight per essay; image permissions are the responsibility of authors after acceptance. Please submit your article in Word only, no PDFs. Figures are limited to 8 images and/or tables, at least 300DPI and in either TIFF or JPG formats submitted in a separate file and not embedded in the text, with captions submitted on a separate Word document. The Mechademia Style Guide can be found at www.mechademia.net.