Abstract

This book examines cosplay from a set of ground-breaking disciplinary approaches, highlighting the latest and emerging discourses around this popular cultural practice. Planet Cosplay comprises chapters from scholars who are widely published in this field, examining the subject of cosplay from sources and sites to performance and play, from sex and gender to production and consumption. It addresses questions ranging from the rise of cosplay as a cultural phenomenon to its role in personal and cultural global identities. Planet Cosplay is unique in providing a multi-perspectival examination of the practice from such theoretical bases as popular cultural studies, performance studies, gender studies, media studies, communication studies. As the title suggests, its purview is global, encompassing some of the main centres of cosplay throughout Asia, the US and Europe as well as some outliers, including Australasia. Each of the chapters offer a comprehensive a set of entry points into the subject matter, and also a kind of narrative of the development of cosplay and scholarly approaches to it.
Paul Mountfort is chair of the Auckland University of Technology Centre for Creative Writing. Anne Peirson-Smith is an assistant professor in the Department of English, at the City University of Hong Kong. Adam Geczy teaches in the Department of Visual Arts, SCA, at the University of Sydney.