Schoolgirls & Mobilesuits

sgms

Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits (SGMS) is an internationally-recognized, three-day workshop that explores and celebrates anime and manga. Through its unique merger of academic and fan audiences, SGMS engages both anime's and manga's creative and cultural implications and practices.

SGMS 2012: Intertexts and Intersections

Conference
September 28th-30th, 2012

Asian popular cultural has generated a vast array of manga, anime, games, and related merchandise, artifacts that have proliferated globally. The 12th annual SGMS Workshop and 2nd annual Mechademia conference focus on the characters, concepts, and ideas that have emerged from Asian popular culture, as well as the intertextual relations and intersections of these forms with other cultures and with other worlds.

Featured Speaker: Dai Sato

Dai Sato is writer of critically acclaimed and fantastically popular television series and films such as Samurai Champloo (2004), Casshern (2004), Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2004), and Cowboy Bebop (1998). He began his career as a TV scriptwriter, program planner, and lyricist at the age of 19, and later ventured into the video game and music industries. Today he is first and foremost an animation scriptwriter, but also creates scripts and concepts for various media. He has collaborated with some of Japan's best-known anime writers, using extensively his experience in game development projects and interactive club events. In 2007 he established Storyriders Inc., Ltd., of which he is the President and CEO.

Call for Proposals

Deadline: Wednesday, July 1, 2012
Individuals should send an abstract of 250 words or less, including the presentation title, to sgms@mcad.edu by 1 July 2012. Panel proposals of 3 or 4 individual papers should include a 250 words description of each presentation, each presenters vita / resume, and a clearly stated panel title.

Individuals are invited to submit proposals that focus on the intersections with and intertextual relations of Asian popular culture. Individual papers as well as panel proposals of three or four individual papers are welcome.

Presenters are encouraged to investigate various lineages and artifacts in an effort to make explicit new insights, new histories, and new objects of knowledge. Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:  

  • Intertextual Axis: East and West
  • Manga to Anime to Games
  • Fan Intersections
  • Inter-Baming Economies and Worlds
  • From Text to Image
  • Parallel Worlds
  • Conceptual Frames
  • The Inter-Connectivity of Popular Cultures
  • Intertextual Readings of Texts, Objects, or Phenomena
  • The Mash-up
  • The Sample
  • The String of Coincidences
  • Queerness
  • Ambiguities

 

Event Information

Submissions

All proposals should be accompanied by the author’s current curriculum vitae or resume. Individuals should send an abstract of 250 words or less, including the presentation title, to sgms@mcad.edu by 1 July 2012. Panel proposals of 3 or 4 individual papers should include a 250 words description of each presentation, each presenters vita / resume, and a clearly stated panel title. Conference organizers will notify accepted panelist and presenters on or before 15 July 2012.

Registration

Panelists accepted for the conference must register by 24 August 2012. The conference registration fee is $125 for presenters and attendees. The reduced registration rate for graduate and undergraduate students is $75. Registration includes all SGMS Workshop and Mechademia Conference events, as well as entrance to the Full Fashion Panic.

Register now!

NOTE: Registration and Reduced-Rate Accommodation Deadline: 24 August 2012

Full Fashion Panic

Advanced tickets for the Full Fashion Panic on Friday, September 28th, at 7:00 p.m. are $15 per person, and can be purchased online through Thursday, September 27th. Tickets the day of the Full Fashion Panic can be purchased at the door for $20.

Accommodations

The conference organizers have reserved rooms at the reduced rate of $99.00 (plus tax) for single or double occupancy at the Millennium Hotel in downtown Minneapolis and in close proximity to the campus of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Rooms include complimentary upgrade to Superior sleeping rooms, complimentary high-speed guest room internet access, and complimentary parking. Suites are also available at a discounted rate of $199 (plus tax) for single or double occupancy.

Reservations can be made by calling the Millennium Hotel at 612.332.6000 or 800.522.8856. Please ask for the "Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits Room Block" rate (i.e., discount code 1209MCADSG). To link directly to the discounted registration rate use the following URL:https://gc.synxis.com/rez.aspx?Hotel=11541&Chain=5303&arrive=9/27/2012&depart=9/30/2012&adult=1&child=0&group=1209MCADSG

Accommodations

The conference organizers have reserved rooms at a reduced rate at the Millennium Hotel in downtown Minneapolis and in close proximity to the campus of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.