With the release of the new Summer 2025 Methodologies issue, Mechademia: Second Arc, the major “forum for studying objects and practices that have developed around media forms associated with Japan” is now approaching its twentieth anniversary (although publication was paused in 2016 and 2017). The twenty-three issues that have appeared since the journal first launched, in 2006, originally as Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga and Fan Arts, have hosted some of the most important scholarly writing on these topics that have appeared in English over this period – as well as translations of important Japanese scholarship, and even some original non-scholarly work. Mechademia can reasonably be considered the leading journal for the developing field of Japanese popular culture studies – and in fact, is becoming increasingly important as a venue for research on Asian popular culture more broadly.
The journal’s publication schedule is currently set through at least the Summer 2028 issue. As has been the practice so far, each issue is organized around a common general theme, whether somewhat specific or fairly abstract, and the themes for the next six are, in order:
- Death and Other Endings (Winter 2025)
- Studio Ghibli (Summer 2026)
- Semiosis/Symbiosis (Winter 2026)
- Graphic Narratives (Summer 2027)
- Game Studies (Winter 2027)
- Erotic Bodies – Hentai, BL, and Beyond (summer 2028)
The Death and Other Endings and Studio Ghibli issues are already in preparation. And the calls for papers for the next two – Semiosis/Symbiosis and Graphic Narratives – are currently open, with submissions accepted until July 1.
Call for Papers
Mechademia: Second Arc, Volume 19, Number 1 (Winter 2026)
Guest Editor: Vincenzo Idone Cassone (Tampere University)
This volume of Mechademia: Second Arc seeks essays that address how new meaning-making worldviews emerge out of the interaction between different forms of life, and how indeed, even popular media themselves are entangled and propagate these dynamics.
Contributions may focus on non-anthropocentric narratives and storytelling, or explore animation-driven paradigms of animism, investigate representations of the post-human condition, or folkloric or religious worldbuilding; they may discuss the biopolitical dynamics of media ecology, or any media genre, form, or text that displays the interaction between different domains of life as the source for new paradigms of meaning-making. Contributors are also encouraged to reflect on the metaphor of symbiosis as a way in which media develop and explore new meaning, for example by investigating media hybridization in relation to remediation and media convergence, or reflecting on the interaction between human/non-human that gives shape to a media ecology, or discussing how media self-narratives and rhetorics interact with the media industry and its biopolitical dynamics. Authors are encouraged to be bold in applying the lenses of semiosis and symbiosis as tools to explore new paradigms, to present innovative interpretations of the systems of media popular culture, or to discuss specific texts and works under thought-provoking perspectives. Approaches that connect semiotic theories and methods with contemporary media and cultural studies are welcome.
Some suggested/possible topics for this special issue can include (though other topics and approaches are also welcome and encouraged):
- Non-anthropocentric storytelling and worldbuilding
- Post-human futures and imaginaries
- Animism in animation, animated animism
- Playful and carnivalesque subversion of species, genres, and media
- Hybrid digital remediation and media convergence
- Media ecology and popular media as a biosphere
- Boundary-breaking mythic and folkloric elements in popular media
- The biopolitical dynamics of the media industry
- Narratives of ecological existentialism
- The political and sociocultural implications of symbiosis
- Togetherness, affect and anti-specism in popular culture
Submissions are expected to be between 5000 and 7000 words and can be sent to submissions@mechademia.net. The full CFP, with additional details, is available on the Mechademia website.
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