[Commlist] CFP: Pikachu's Transmedia Adventures: The Continuing Adaptability of the Pokemon Franchise

Please find listed below details of a call for papers for a forthcoming 
edited collection concerning the Pokemon franchise. The deadline for 
abstracts is the 27th August and we are aiming to publish the collection 
with Duke University Press.

*******************************************************************

*Pikachu’s Transmedia Adventures: The Continuing Adaptability of the 
Pokemon Franchise*

In 2021, the Pokemon franchise celebrates the 25th anniversary of its 
debut in Japan and the fifth anniversary of its popular worldwide AR 
cellphone game Pokemon Go. In fact, Pokemon is arguably experiencing 
something of a resurgence and renaissance within the current cultural 
moment. When a pop-up Pokemon Centre store was opened in London in 2018 
to mark the release of Sword and Shield, queues for entering the retail 
space frequently had to be closed due to demand whilst product lines 
regularly sold out on a daily basis. In 2019, when the long-running 
cartoon’s main character Ash Ketchum finally won a Pokemon tournament, 
major news sites humorously deemed this victory a newsworthy event 
(Bissett 2019). More recently, a revival in Pokemon card collecting has 
left retail shelves bare and scalpers running rampant whilst 
mint-condition ‘graded’ cards have sold for hundreds of thousands of 
dollars at auction (Koebler 2021). Meanwhile, the games themselves 
continue to be adapted to Nintendo’s console platforms, with the 
Nintendo Switch releasing both remakes of previously popular titles 
(Pokemon Let’s Go! Pikachu and Let’s Go! Eevee, Pokemon Snap) as well as 
new titles exploring hitherto unknown regions (Pokemon Sword and 
Shield). Much more than a franchise intended to commercially target and 
exploit children, the Pokemon franchise represents an enduringly popular 
intellectual property that continues to attract interest across generations.

Despite this, in-depth and continuous academic study of this hugely 
popular intellectual property has been infrequent at best. In fact, the 
last time that a dedicated collection of essays exploring the franchise 
in a holistic manner was published was in 2004, with many of the 
contributors positioning the property as a ‘fad’ whose cycle of 
popularity was apparently at its end (see Tobin 2004; N.B. the augmented 
reality game Pokemon Go (Niantic 2016- ) has bucked this trend by 
generating considerable academic attention - see Kulak, Purzycki, 
Henthorn and Vie 2019; Saker and Evans 2021). Where Pokemon has 
attracted infrequent academic discussion, this has occurred in the 
context of assessing how wider cultural flows from Japan to the West 
have impacted on children’s media (Allison 2006; O’Melia 2020). What is 
absent, then, is a volume that takes the Pokemon franchise on its own 
terms and which situates the property within a much-changed media 
environment. Thus, a study is needed which considers Pokemon in terms of 
multiple contemporary debates within media and cultural studies. These 
include - but are no way limited to - cultural, technological, and media 
convergence (Jenkins 2006), discourses of transmediality and media mix 
(Steinberg 2012; Williams 2020), paratextuality (Gray 2010), licensing 
and/or (transgenerational) media industries studies (Santo 2015; Johnson 
2019), material culture (Geraghty 2014; Bainbridge 2017) and fan 
cultures (Scott 2019; Stanfill 2019). Whether approached as a transmedia 
franchise, corporate intellectual property, system offering ludic 
possibilities, fan community, or otherwise, academic scholarship should 
better consider how the Pokemon franchise has engaged with, adapted to, 
and challenged the contours of the ever-evolving transmedia environment.

This call for papers seeks abstracts of 300-500 words for chapters of 
approx. 6000 words that explore topics including (but not are limited to):

  *

    The Industrial development of The Pokemon Company and its corporate
    relations with Nintendo and other licensed partners.

  *

    Pokemon and the historical development of media industries studies.

  *

    The evolution of Pokemon: The Card Game and its relationship to
    industrial contexts.

  *

    The evolution of the Pokemon computer games (e.g. games studies
    perspectives; remediation relating to Let’s Go!, Snap, etc.)

  *

    Pokemon and/as character licensing.

  *

    Pokemon and transmedia storytelling and/as transmedia text.

  *

    Pokemon, transmedia tourismand the Experience Economy (e.g. the
    Pokemon Cafe; the annual Pikachu Parade).

  *

    Pokemon Go and developments in augmented reality experiences and/or
    the gamification of space.

  *

    Detective Pikachu and Pokemon’s other cinematic adaptations.

  *

    Pokemon’s historical developments as anime.

  *

    Pokemon’s historical developmentsas manga

  *

    Pokemon and/as fan fashion (e.g. high-fashion licensees, jewelry,
    make-up).

  *

    Pokemon and/as paratextual theory.

  *

    Interventions concerning Pokemon and identity politics (e.g.
    feminism, critical race theory, queer theory).

  *

    Pokemon and/as the global expansion of kawaii/cute culture.

  *

    Thematic analyses of the Pokemon franchise (e.g. its ties with
    environmentalism).

  *

    Pokemon’s links to Japanese ‘soft power’.

  *

    Fan practices and transformative works related to the Pokemon
    franchise across multiple forms and platforms.

  *

    Pokemon and/as children’s culture.

We are especially interested in soliciting chapters featuring 
non-Western perspectives as well as ones engaging with historically 
marginalised or underrepresented groups.

We hope to include work from both established and emerging scholars; 
junior scholars & graduate students are encouraged to apply.

Please email abstracts of 300-500 words with an accompanying Author Bio 
of approx. 150 words to Ross Garner ((GarnerRP1 /at/ Cardiff.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(GarnerRP1 /at/ Cardiff.ac.uk)>) and EJ Nielsen (ej 
<mailto:(enielsen /at/ umass.edu)>(nielsen.ephemera /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(nielsen.ephemera /at/ gmail.com)>) by 27 August, 2021.


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