M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, is an initiative of the Media and Cultural Studies Centre at The University of Queensland in Australia. Established in 1998, M/C has successfully grown in international standing among serious internet journals. Each issue of M/C is themed. For the issue released on 31 July 2002, the theme is 'loop'.

M/C invites contributions from a broad range of disciplines that make use of the considerable explanatory power of the notion of the 'loop'. The 'loop' is a pervasive and fundamental metaphor of repetition, denoting both problem and solution in a number of disciplines, and acting as a cross-over device between disciplines. To be "in the loop" is to be "in the know", but what is it about the 'loop' that constitutes knowledge? Moreover, in displacing the “time’s arrow” metaphor of linear progress, does the recursivity of the loop (exemplified by the concepts of revolution and the eternal return) paradoxically provide a new and unique challenge to modernist epistemology, or does it simply indicate a retrospective vision?

We envisage a diverse range of contributions. Authors might wish to explore active and passive loops, feedback and autocatalytic loops, interconnected loops, chained loops, and hypercycles (a loop of autocatalytic loops). Also welcomed are investigations of loopholes, looping in music (both in terms of the classical rising loops of the well-tempered clavier and modern techniques of tape and digital looping), the states of being looped (drunk) or loopy (crazy), and the performance of loops (such as in rituals and recycling). Authors are invited to discuss potential contributions with either editor, Peta Mitchell (Peta@uq.net.au) or E. Sean Rintel (er8430@albany.edu), and are encouraged to submit well in advance of the due date (1 July 2002).

Contributors are directed to previous issues of M/C (http://www.media-culture.org.au/archive.html) for article length and style guidelines. M/C is a fully peer-reviewed academic journal. ISSN 1441-2616