Anyone ever read any of these? I was able to find PDF downloads for vol. 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, and 9. I'm not knowledgeable enough about how JSTOR works to know if it's possible to get the rest off of there. They recently came back after a hiatus as indicated on their website.
I've heard it mentioned a few times in internet comments but never looked into them. Noticed it had a bunch of the same names writers on it (Susan Napier, Brian Ruh, Helen McCarthy, Matt Alt, Thomas Lamarre, Johnathon Clements, etc.) that have published a lot of the 50-100-ish academic books on anime/manga that are available (or well-known, relatively).
These two lists on Goodreads good a good job collecting most of the main ones:
Anyway, I was listening to the AWO podcast episode "On Anime Bootlegging and Mechademia Volume 1" where the second half reviews the contents of vol. 1 of it. Made me think they're probably worth reading although I find a lot of western academic writing about the subject to be too divorced and dry and somewhat useless.
Also been trying to find recordings of the talks "Anime Expo Academic Symposium". The only non-Miku Hatsune one I can find is "New Directions in the Japanese Animation Industry" and "Girls Un Robots", though there's this other talked called "Anime In Academia" from Otakon 2003 that covers a lot of the earlier writers involved with publishing papers on anime that's fairly informative and mildly interesting.
I guess this is now an 'anime in academia' post. Do not discuss My Hero Academia.