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. To subscribe to the journal and order back issues, if available, see the journal page at the University of Minnesota Press. Because the print run for each issue is small, subscribing through the Press is the only guaranteed way to obtain physical copies of the journal.
Current & Back Issues
Vol. 11.1: Childhood
Vol. 12.1: Transnational Fandom, guest ed. Andrea Horbinski
Vol. 12.2: Materialities Across Asia, guest ed. Stevie Suan
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- Coming spring 2020
Vol. 13.1: Queer(ing), guest ed. James Welker
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- Coming autumn 2020
Vol. 13.2: Soundscapes, guest ed. Stacey Jocoy
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- Coming spring 2021
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 either a Word document or a PDF. One of these copies should be anonymized: 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 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.
Vol. 14.1: Science Fictions, guest ed. Takayuki Tatsumi (due 1 July 2020; published autumn 2021)
This volume of Mechademia: Second Arc seeks ambitious and insightful essays on what is considered to be current science fiction and/or speculative fiction in a variety of fields (such as novels, manga, anime, cosplay and other performative genres, and drama) that pioneer the new horizons of science fiction in the current context of international literature, film, anime, manga, or art.
We used to know what Science Fiction meant. From its literary antecedents in Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe; to Golden Age authors like Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke; to the New Wave, Speculative Fiction, and Cyberpunk authors of the 1960s-1980s; the canon of western science fiction is well established in academia.
However, the science fiction we used to know came to be gradually metamorphosed into something else in the wake of cyberpunkish techno-orientalism coinciding with the discourses of “Japan as No. 1,” “Pax Japonica,” and “Cool Japan” in the past four decades. The literary subgenre of Japanese science fiction started with the inauguration of Hayakawa’s Science Fiction Magazine in 1959.
Since then, Japanese science fiction has produced a number of talented writers ranging from the first generation writers Shin’ichi Hoshi, Sakyo Komatsu, Yasutaka Tsutsui to the contemporary writers Hirotaka Tobi, Project Itoh, and Toe Enjoe. Deeply influenced by western science fiction, they published not only hardcore science fiction, but also avant-garde speculative fiction. Some received not only science fiction awards, but also prestigious awards in mainstream literature. Many of their major works have been translated into English and even made into films, anime, or dramas. In the 21st century, the rise of the multiple award-winning Chinese American author Ted Chang and his Stories of Your Life, as well as Chinese science fictionist author Cixin Liu and his game-changing The Three-Body Problem trilogy — arising in the age of digital humanities, helped us to question not only the science fictional Asia, but also Transpacific science fiction and world literature.
Yes indeed, the 21st century has truly initiated us into the age of transnational science fiction!
Possible topics include but are not limited to:
- Asian influences in the contemporary age of SF
- International SF histories and/or cultures
- International SF genre or narratives
- Contemporary SF theoretical aspects
- Flows of SF in the contemporary age
- Adaptations of SF masterpieces
- Novelizations of SF films
- De-canonization and/or Recanonization of SF history
- Decolonization of SF narratives