[Commlist] CFP for Issue 003 of MENT, a journal on Korean popular media

CFP: MENT Magazine, Issue 3
Submit your pitches to (editors /at/ mentmagazine.com) 
<mailto:(editors /at/ mentmagazine.com)> by *September 30, 2025 *for potential 
inclusion in the third issue.

We are inviting pitches and proposals for the third issue of MENT 
(mentmagazine.com <http://mentmagazine.com>), a Korean pop culture 
magazine that combines critical analysis, fan practice, and visual 
storytelling. We publish longform essays, interviews, multimedia art, 
and other experimental forms, and our goal is to bring together 
scholars, fans, and cultural workers to think critically and creatively 
about how Korean media and fandom shapes community, politics, and 
everyday life.

For our third issue, we particularly welcome--but are not limited 
to--pieces that explore how media and culture are shaped through 
relations of co-creation: idols as assemblages of body, image, capital, 
labor, and environment; fandom practices as the crossing of the human 
and the algorithmic, the individual and the collective; as well as 
tropes and figures of such relations in film, television, music, and 
public life. What implications do such entanglements hold for our 
contemporary moment? How and when are they dangerous? How and when might 
they be liberatory?

Further, such entanglements are carried forward through practices of 
documentation, adaptation, and memory. We invite work that considers 
these practices in the broadest sense. Who are the record keepers? What 
rituals sustain or revise them? Which archives persist, and which are 
forgotten or erased?  How might different forms of cultural production 
and reception help forge new solidarities?

We welcome multimodal and experimental work that not only analyze these 
ideas but also play with them at the level of form. Of course, we are 
also always open to ideas that fall beyond the scope of the prompts 
above. We hope to build a diverse living archive through the essays, 
experiments, and creative practices that we assemble together.


To Pitch Critical Essays:
To pitch critical essays, proposals should be about 300-500 words, and 
include the following elements:

1) Features a clear central argument

2) Explores broader stakes of the argument: why a public audience who 
may not be precisely invested in the media object / cultural practice 
you are analyzing should care

3) Demonstrates awareness of the broader landscape of ideas you're 
intervening in: what has been said about your subject? What are you 
adding to the conversation?

4) Timeliness: Why this piece at this particular moment? What recent 
events give rise to it? How might it in turn shed light on contemporary 
issues / phenomena?

5) Rigorous but publicly-accessible language

Full drafts, if available, are encouraged, but please also include a 
proposal that covers the elements above.

To Pitch Experimental Pieces:
To pitch experimental or multimodal contributions, proposals should be 
about 300-500 words, and include the following elements:

1) A clear central point:  what is the claim, perspective, or question 
your work highlights or advances?

2) Explores broader stakes: why does this point matter? What are some 
broader cultural conversations that your piece intervenes in? Why might 
a public audience care?

3) Form and method: what is the form your work will take, and why does 
this form best express your central point?


Statement: there are no article-processing charges; authors do not need 
to pay to contribute work to the magazine.

Inquiries can be directed to (editors /at/ mentmagazine.com) 
<mailto:(editors /at/ mentmagazine.com)>. We look forward to hearing from you!


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