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[caption]: The Journal of
Visual Cultural Studies emerges from the collision of theory
and spectacle. Annual, audacious, and gloriously
hybrid, it stages encounters between scholarship
and image-making—where Arbus’s restless gaze meets
the ghosts of Benjamin, Mulvey, and Stuart Hall.
A publication as alive as the
media it studies, [caption]
invites artists, critics, and cultural troublemakers
to think with their eyes: to dissect cinema,
photography, fashion, design, and the ever-mutating
semiotics of the screen.
Part gallery, part think tank,
part cultural séance, [caption]
insists that looking is never
innocent, that every image is an argument, every
theory a pose.
Imagine a magazine/journal that
blends the look of Warhol's Interview Magazine,
the smarts of the journal Camera Obscura, the
visual cultural studies amazingness of John Berger
et al's Ways of Seeing, of Marshall
McLuhan's and Quentin Fiore's The Medium is the
Massage. Oversized, loud, bold, and
unapologetic, [caption] is where vision
becomes discourse, and discourse dares to look back.
First Analog Issue, May 1, 2026;
Digital Issue, NOW, here, alive, evolving, and
forthcoming, analog, in print in 2026.
[caption]
1, call for papers/photography/art
etc is NOW LIVE!
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ARTIFACT #1
5 November 2025
Caption
“Estados Jodidos”
2007, mixed media on canvas
4' x 6'
Izel Vargas
CAPTION:
Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of
the "Mexican" in America introduces the concept of
"Xicanosmosis," a mouthful of a word that fuses the ideas of "Chicano" with
"osmosis" -- sort of a shorthand way of talking about what happens
when the cultures and histories of the United States and Latin America
combine, clash, fuse, and frolic.
Izel Vargas's amazing
paintings embody the odd, symbiotic dynamics
of xicanosmosis
in ways that my book just can't match.
"Estados Jodidos" is
one of my favorite works in my private collection of art. Izel Vargas
shared an anecdote with me about what
happened when "Estados Jodidos" was first
displayed in public.
"What was
funny was that no one knew what "Estados
Jodidos"* meant,
except for the occasional
Spanish-speaking passerby, which happened to be the Latino
workers that were employed near and around the storefront.
When I was asked about it, the
conversation
quickly turned into a one about
immigration in North Carolina -- some of the surrounding counties
had been passing laws that didn't allow workers to hang out in
certain areas, limited taco truck
vending, and gave
cops the power to detain for ICE
officials anyone they identified as illegal.
Most Latino immigrants didn't understand
these laws mainly
because of a language barrier, which in
turn added more
mistrust that had already permeated
within the community. This is how 'Estados Jodidos' came to
be."
[* A Spanish-language pun
on "Estados Unidos" or The United States,
"Estados Jodidos" means "The Fucked
States"]
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Breaking News
Rando
sites and cool visual cultural stuff we
have our 👁️
on!
Contributor: Joey King
https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/mcsweeney-s-78-the-make-believers?taxon_id=5
main
site: http://www.mcsweeneys.net
Caption: I’ve
been completely engrossed in
issue 78 of McSweeney’s
Quarterly Concern, which
I subscribed to recently. “The
Make Believers” is brought to us
by a group of Vietnamese
writers. It’s funny,
heart-wrenching, compelling, and
I feel like I’ve learned so much
more about Vietnamese culture in
the diaspora from it all.
Contributor: Joey King
https://www.eleetwarez.net/ljrr
Caption:
Jared Stanley’s live exhibition “La Jolla
Reading Room” recently showcased in
SDSU’s Digital Humanities Center. Chatter
emanates from multiple perspectives within
Stanley’s labyrinth-like exhibit; remixing
notions of the ‘quiet’ library while
narrating stories that become all the more
circuitous each time they’re heard.
Contributor: Bill Nericcio
https://read.dukeupress.edu/camera-obscura
Caption: "The journal changed my career and,
in a way, my life ... When they elected to publish my scribblings
on Speedy Gonzalez and Pee-wee Herman, the
opportunities for me and my published forays
expanded dramatically."
Contributor: Bill Nericcio
https://www.lensculture.com/articles/daesung-lee-nirvana
Caption: Lens Culture
pursues the kind of deep image analysis
that lights our fire! If you like LENS
CULTURE, you may well adore [caption].
Contributor: Raine Porath
https://anthology.rhizome.org/
Caption: Rhizome’s Net
Art Anthology preserves the life of classic
net art and e-lit bangers. We're building
[caption] as a vibrant homebase for the next
age of e-lit classics.
Contributor:
Bonnie Palos
https://huizachemag.org
Caption:
though mainly known as a purveyor of amazing
Chicana/o/x and Latinx literature, HUIZACHE,
also displays a savvy visual talent that
caught my eye and keeps bringing me back to
the site. Dagoberto Gilb & company are
curating an evolving site for short fiction,
poetry, and more.
Contributor:
Bill Nericcio
https://grapheine.com/en/magazine/john-heartfield-photomontage-as-a-political-weapon/
Caption:
More to add soon -- this site embodies the
#goals of our evolving enterprise. GRAPHEINE
is sharp! We feature one of their stunning
illustrations highlighting the work of the
20th century king of photomontage, satire,
and graphic innovation: John Heartfield.
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Caption ZINE
Open Access Artkive
Born
Digital
A Brief Introduction to Electronic
Literature + Resource Guide
source
| Joey King, author/compiler/researcher
CAPTION: Electronic
Literature is Literature without
Boundaries; Electrifyingly,
omnipresently forging new pathways to
help us make sense of our
ever-increasingly virtual, AI-Prompted
Future. When I entered the M.A.
Program in English and Comparative
Literature in the fall of 2023,
returning to academia full-time after
nearly fifteen years in the corporate
world, a friend of mine asked why I’d
want to study for a graduate degree in
this particular discipline when “books
are dead.” His question stuck in my
craw—mostly because I knew that books
weren’t “dead,” nor was the study of
literature in the twenty-first
century. Still, this general sentiment
wasn’t unique to him. It seemed to
capture the way literary studies has
come to be dismissed in a culture
ironically dominated by digital
narratives and the identities people
construct and perform across social
media, broadcasted to the world.
English departments have long been the
place where culture gets read and
unraveled. And stories—whether bound
in print or stitched together by
hyperlinks, hashtags, or AI-generated
prompts—have always been our terrain.
What drew me back to literature wasn’t
nostalgia; it was a sense that this
field, at places like SDSU in
particular, was reorienting itself
toward the future with curiosity,
urgency, and care.
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CAPTION
ALLIES/ILK/BREED/BRAND
References
eLit Archives
The Next
Pathfinders Project
The Electronic Literature Directory + Knowledge Base
Rhizome / Net Art Anthology
UPenn Electronic Poetry Center Library + conference archive
Consortium on Electronic Literature
CYBERIA
netart.org.uy / notart + ar(t)chives
NetArt Latino Database
Interactive Fiction Archive
https://itch.io/
Eastgate Systems / StorySpace
The ELO's Electronic Literature Collection (volumes 1-4)
eLit Netprov from Mark Marino and Rob Wittig on Reddit
about Photos/Captions/Rewrites (also on IG)
eLit Publications
Hyperrhiz c2005
The New River c1996
ALTX c1993
BeeHive
Poiesis
Cartografía Digital
Filter - zine for electronic literature, entirely housed on Instagram
Open Source Publications
Dancecult Journal
Re*Mediate
Electronic Literature Review
Electronic Book Review
the AI Literary Review - a journal of new poetry, created by humans, utilising artificial intelligence
Ensemble Park - primarily print-based with process notes and interviews. collects literary experiments in human-computer co-writing
Open Source Platforms/Distributors
https://radicaloa.postdigitalcultures.org/about/
Open Journal Systems
Directory of Open Access Journals
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MASTHEAD
managing editors:
William Nericcio, MALAS @ SDSU
Joey King, MA, ECL @ SDSU
Evan Shulman, MA Candidate, MALAS
Raine Porath, MA Candidate, MALAS
Bonnie Palos, PhD, Ohio State
Toki Lee, MA/PhD, UMass Amherst
editorial
board:
William
"Memo" Nericcio, SDSU
Carlos
Kelly, Kennessaw State University
Chris
Gonzalez, Chair, English, SMU
Katlin
Marisol Sweeney Romero, UC Davis
Quentin
Bailey, Chair, ECL @ SDSU
Toki
Lee, MA/PHD Program, UMASS Amherst
Bonnie
Palos, PHD Program, the Ohio State U.
Frederick
Aldama, UT Austin
Jessica
Pressman, ECL @ SDSU
Y
Howard, ECL @ SDSU
Kristin
Bivona, Humanities @ SDSU
We welcome
ghosts on our editorial board. Susan Sontag,
Walter Benjamin, John Berger, Trinh
T. Minh-ha, Stuart Hall, Theresa Hak Kyung
Cha, Jose Guadalupe Posada, Manuel
Alvarez Bravo, Guillermo Kahlo, Rene
Magritte, and others have been invited.
CAPTION is an
evolving semiotic conspiracy.Those involved
include SDSU
Press, the MALAS
Program @ SDSU, ECL
@ SDSU, eLIT
& the Digital
Humanities @ SDSU. |
header image: [detail] Alexander Rodchenko, 1930, "Portrait with Flacon"
masthead image: Rene Magritte, 1929, "The Treachery of Images"
Enjoy visual cultural studies? Come join our ever unfolding semiotic adventure with MALAS @ SDSU
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