CFP: [caption] the journal of visual cultural studies

SDSU Press Presents

[caption] the journal of visual cultural studies

Issue 001 – “CAPTION THIS”

[caption] emerges from the collision of theory and spectacle. Annual, audacious, and gloriously hybrid, the journal stages encounters between scholarship and image-making—where Arbus’s restless gaze meets the ghosts of Benjamin, Mulvey, and Stuart Hall. We publish work that refuses to choose between seeing and thinking, between the archive and the avant-garde. 

For our inaugural issue, [caption] invites artists, scholars, critics, practitioners, and cultural troublemakers to submit work that interrogates the visual in all its unruly forms: cinema, photography, fashion, design, streaming culture, digital media, and the mutating semiotics of contemporary screens. Bring us the work that won’t sit still. Bring us the visual theory that insists on being seen.

We encourage collaboration between great writers and great artists to submit:

• Scholarly essays that converse with, challenge, or rewire traditions of visual and cultural theory
• Short-form visual essays, photo sequences, and experimental image-driven criticism
• Reflections on archival practices, media histories, and the politics of looking
• Creative-critical hybrids, fragments, manifestos, and works that defy categorization
• Interviews or dialogues with artists, thinkers, and makers
• Short speculative writings on media futures, digital hauntings, and the aesthetics of surveillance

[caption] is part gallery, part think tank, part cultural séance. We publish work that understands every image as an argument and every theory as a pose. We seek submissions that look back, look with, and look otherwise—pieces alive with curiosity, unruliness, and rigor.

Submission Guidelines:

• Short scholarly essays captioning visual cultural art/work/artist/study: 500-3,000 words
• Visual or hybrid works: up to 15 images with accompanying text (300–1,000 words)
• Interviews: up to 4,000 words
• All submissions should include a short artist/scholar bio (100 words)

More at sdsupress.sdsu.edu/caption

EXTENDED Deadline: March 1, 2026

Refer questions and send submissions to Joey King: [email protected] 

Join us in making [caption] a space where vision becomes discourse—and discourse dares to look back.