Mechademia Conference on Asian Popular Cultures

05/24/2021

Mechademia International Conference: Kyoto 2021

The Mechademia International Conference: Kyoto 2021, will present the presentations from the cancelled 2020 Conference – now fully online. The asynchronous presentations are now loaded onto a Teachable site, and once you have registered, you may watch them anytime, from any zone globally. Then, on June 5-6, 2021, there will be synchronous sessions of live online Q+As from each of the panels, and two Keynote presentations.

This conference is now open to the public.

To register for the public attendee access on the Teachable site, go to:
https://mechademia.teachable.com/p/sales

Non-presenting public attendee' categories have been added to the page
above. Students or associates who would like to view the presentations
and discussions can sign up through those categories. (1000 yen for
students and independent scholars, 3000 yen for full-time faculty).

For questions, go to: [email protected]

11/29/2020

Let's dive into the world of a legendary anime director Satoshi Kon, creator of Paprika on the 10th-anniversary of his passing.

11/13/2020

Let's dive into the world of music in anime! Join us for a discussion with musicologists about meanings hidden in anime music.

09/20/2020

Mechademia staff and friends past and present are doing a roundtable for JFNY! Register at the link below!

Let's dive into the world of Anime & Manga Studies! Join us as we discuss with professors about the field that fascinates them so much.

06/25/2020

Second Arc is available online! Go to @

Mechademia: Second Arc is available on JSTOR, which is free to use until the end of 2020. Register and start reading today!

05/23/2020

CFP for 14.2, New Formulations of the Otaku, available now!

The CFP for issue 14.2, New Formulations of the Otaku, is available now. Submissions are due 1 January 2021.

03/12/2020

CFP for issue 14.1, Science Fictions, available now!

The CFP for issue 14.1, “Science Fictions,” is available now. Submissions are due 1 July 2020.

03/05/2020

It is with profound regret that we must inform you that the 2020 Mechademia Asia Conference: Ecologies at the Manga Museum and Kyoto Seika University will be postponed until May 2021. As with many countries around the world, Japan is experiencing a significant increase in confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus. Following the Japanese government's recommended procedures, Kyoto Seika University has cancelled a number of academic gatherings including the Mechademia conference. [ 258 more words ]

Dear Colleagues, It is with profound regret that we must inform you that the 2020 Mechademia Asia Conference: Ecologies at the Manga Museum and Kyoto Seika University will be cancelled and postpone…

10/18/2019

MECHADEMIA CONFERENCE OF ASIAN POPULAR CULTURES Minneapolis 2021

Modes of Existence

“I am large, I contain multitudes.”
Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

Thomas Lamarre, in an attempt to ellipse the intercepting ‘wrong turns’ the term otaku tends to take, states that we must: “consider otaku as a new mode of social existence, as a kind of social being . . . we need to look at the emergence of a new set of social relations and to consider how our knowledge procedures interact with them. These otaku social relations, or rather this otaku mode of existence, may become highly condensed, and very visible in certain locations and activities and within specific populations.”
The inclusion of Lamarre’s “new mode of social existence,” harkens to both Étienne Souriau and Bruno Latour’s theories of modes of existence, and suggests that Lamarre sees the otaku as a new and emerging mode, one that is keenly linked to new mode of communities in which the heightened connectivity of the Internet has transformed the potential, the locations, and--in particular for the otaku fan--a new sort of creativity, a new sort of culture, and within that culture, a new mode of existence for the individual subject. This new mode -- perceived visually as a singular being -- is actually a constellation of different properties that may elude substantive visibility, but seem to be able to lunge forward in the presentation of that being.
Those forward-leaning aspects are what are understood in the reception of the other as the provisional identity of the subject. That identity--or identities -- inhabit beings in multiple modes of existence that are the relative contexts in which different identities creatively emerge and perform as individuals – particularly visible in fandoms. For this conference, we would like to explore that many potential configurations that different modes of existence provoke in terms of modes of social, sexual, gendered, fannish, fictional, psychological, philosophical, and theoretical existences that well up in the area of Asian popular cultural expressions.
For example:
• Characters or kyara
• Specific fandoms – e.g. BTS, Lo**ta, BL, etc.
• BwO (Bodies without Organs – Deleuze and Guattari)
• Transversality (Guattari)
• Instauration (Étienne Souriau)
• Costumed modes
• Fictional modes, e.g. Vocaloids, anime characters
• Online modes
• Cure (cosplay online directory)
Presenters can register as either attending or as a GoToMeeting candidate. Paper and/or panel proposals of not more than 250 words are due on or before April 30, 2021.
Send conference proposals to [email protected] with the subject line “Mechademia Conference 2021.”

09/07/2019

One of your designers!

Puvithel is a alternative fashion designer who makes and designs original handmade jewelry, accessories, clothing and handbags for J-fashion and alternative styles. While currently based in Pittsburgh, Puvithel started in Atlanta in 2015.

Puvithel is about unabashed, self-expression and spans many styles, including punk, gothic, lo**ta, and menhera. However, regardless of style Puvithel's items are loud, and are inspired by the in-your-face aesthetic of American gothic fashion. Expression in the form of fashion can help people, and Puvithel tries to express that idea in each item. Every series has its own style and narrative to aid you in telling your own story.