About Mechademia

In 2013, the original SGMS “workshop” (since 2001) at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design morphed into an international academic conference, which was then titled: SGMS: Mechademia Conference (the SGMS part was dropped the following year). This change came about because of the emergence of the book series published by the University of Minnesota Press, called Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts; first published in 2006, created by Frenchy Lunning, Thomas Lamarre, and Christopher Bolton.

It was an anthology of international scholarly work on the then emerging popular cultural forms coming from Japan. It was published annually for ten years, the final book in that series being published in 2015. This series came about from the continuing lack of conference and publication opportunities for the now increasing amount of scholarship internationally. It became an international presence for discussion of the cultural study, creation, theories, aesthetics, semiotics, and history -- as well as the fascination and wonder of the remarkably broad range of objects and practices that have developed around the global proliferation of Japanese anime, manga, and gaming. The entire set of these books can be found in the Research Room at the Kyoto Manga Museum, and was still available in 2018 in the English section of Japanese bookstores.

In recent years, we brought the conference to Asian countries to both enrich the experience and to enjoin scholars who may not have been able to attend otherwise. In 2012, the conference was held in Seoul, Korea, and in 2016 in Tokyo, Japan. In 2018, and now in 2021 (online only), the Mechademia International Conference on Asian Popular Cultures is now held and sponsored by the International Kyoto Manga Museum and Kyoto Seika University, in Kyoto, Japan.

Following the final book of the Mechademia series, the University of Minnesota Press then launched Mechademia: Second Arc – a biannual journal, first published in 2018, is now in full publication with a pan-Asian and global focus, co-edited by Frenchy Lunning and Sandra Annett.

The US Mechademia Conference is currently organized by a committee of Frenchy Lunning, Christina Spiker, Andy Scott, Anton Peterson, and Megan Shroff. This conference is currently in limbo after the quarantine of Covid made these meetings impossible. The Kyoto Mechademia conference committee is Frenchy Lunning, Stevie Suan, Sookyung Yoo, Edmund Hoff, Andy Scott, and Diana Tolin. This conference is, with this 2021 online conference, setting the format for future conferences.

Mechademia Conferences and Publications

Mechademia book series and journal at University of Minnesota Press