Mechademia 5 CFP

[Mark Nornes]

Mechademia has announced a call for papers for their 5th outing, and  
it's a great topic.  See below....

Markus





Call for Papers
MECHADEMIA 5: Fanthropologies
(University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming in 2010)

In recent years, interest in fan communities and fan activities has  
exploded, and the term otaku has become global currency.  Terms like  
"fan" and "otaku" have been mobilized for a wide range or reasons in a  
wide variety of discourses, from gender studies to inquiries about  
technology and sociality.  We think that the exploration of fan  
activities and otaku phenomena is crucial to understanding the  
contemporary world of transnational image and information flows, as  
well as the transnational formation of concepts and discourses.

In keeping with our mission to forge links between different  
communities of knowledge and to challenge the conventional channels  
for the flow of information, in Mechademia 5, we propose a challenge  
to the received understandings of fans.  We would like to challenge  
quasi-anthropological and pseudo-sociological readings in which the  
identity of "fan" or "otaku" is presumed in advance as a fixed object  
of knowledge.  We propose "fanthropologies" not as the anthropology of  
fans but as an exploration of the challenge that fans present for the  
imposition of anthropological knowledge and the sociological gaze.  To  
do "fanthropology" is not to do anthropology of fans but to ask what  
anthropology might be for or to fans.

We thus invite submissions that take seriously the social and  
historical construction of fans or otaku as an object of knowledge  
rather than impose it imperiously.  We welcome essays that counter the  
tendency to posit fans as nothing more than a new object for old forms  
of knowledge.  We seek essays about zones of activity as varied as  
manga and anime fandoms, game and character design, subcultures,  
emergent communities and microfascisms, connoisseurship, packaging,  
pop arts and fine arts, to name but a few

We encourage authors from various backgrounds with diverse interests  
to write in a variety of formats and from a range of perspectives.   
These might include textual readings that foreground reader or viewer  
experience, critical theorizations of fandom, and studies of fan- 
produced texts, as well as first-person narratives, photo essays,  
artistic interventions, and other approaches not listed here. We call  
on contributors not only to write across disciplinary boundaries but  
also to address readers in allied communities of knowledge.

The submission deadline is January 5, 2009. Submissions may be sent as  
attachments to submissions at mechademia.org. Essays should be between  
1,000 and 5,000 words and use Chicago style documentation. Authors may  
include up to five black-and-white images, and additional images or  
color images may be possible with special permission from the  
publisher. Further information is available on the Mechademia web site  
at http://mechademia.org.

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