Intellect

Sunday 5th September saw the close of Beijing’s 18th International Book Fair. This year's event saw a record 2,100 publishing organizations from 60 countries, to showcase over 200,000 new books, periodicals, e-publications and audiovisual products, now making it one of the top four International Book Fairs in the world.

Intellect sent its Director, Mark Lewis, to investigate the Book Fair and to develop new business and relationships within the Chinese publishing and academic community.

The exhibition space was essentially divided into two areas: one area housed representatives from all the major European and Asian countries while the second area housed Chinese publishers, grouped along regional or business-related lines. All the big publishers were present such as Harper Collins, McGraw-Hill, Penguin etc, but the academic publishing community were also well represented, which included Intellect’s North American distributor The University of Chicago Press and their agent in China, Wei Zhao of Everest International Publishing Services.

A number of Chinese authors and contributors already publish with Intellect but, more recently, there has been a growing demand for Chinese translations of some of our titles. Mark met with a number of Chinese publishers and rights agencies during the fair and found genuine excitement both about Intellect’s business ethos and many of our current titles. We now confidently expect to conclude a number of rights contracts over the next few months and have developed relationships that will result in a growing number of translations in the future.

The quantity and quality of Chinese academic work is astounding and far too little of it is reaching the western world, often because of the language barrier. As the champion of the author, Intellect is determined to bring more Chinese authors’ work to the west. Outside of the Book Fair, Mark met with some of our current Chinese authors to discuss further publishing opportunities and, on his last day in Beijing, met with three professors of the Beijing Film Academy; Professor YAO Guo Qiang, Professor HAIZHOU Wang and Professor LIU Jun, and Alick, a student of Professor Yao who assisted in setting up the meeting and with translation.

The Beijing Film Academy is extremely prestigious and well known throughout the world. It has won many prizes over the years in film festivals worldwide and it’s quality of teaching and research has also won many accolades. Following a tour of the academy a wide range of topics were discussed and it quickly became apparent that there were many areas of synergy between our two organisations, which could allow us to work together both to bring their academics work to the west and to bring Intellect’s publications to China. We hope for and look forward to a long and fruitful relationship.
 

Image caption: Mark Lewis (Centre) with Professor YAO Guo Qiang on his right and Professor HAIZHOU Wang on his left. In the second photo is Alick, a student of
Professor YAO, who helped set up the meeting and also helped with
translation.

Neil Mitchell the editor of Intellect's forthcoming World Film Locations: London volume yesterday posted an excellect blog on Shine a light, which is part of Vice magazine's blogging network. Here's a sample:

'Much of the discussion surrounding Chinese Internet culture has centered on the rise of online human rights activism, but the emergence of an online erotic culture that openly describes individuals' personal sexual activities has also been evident in recent years.

Associate Professor Katrien Jacobs‘ research at The Chinese University of Hong Kong on “People's Pornography” has investigated the culture of ‘Do It Yourself' amateur porn on the Chinese Internet, as well as the interplay between pornography producers and consumers within the state's censorship mechanism.'

Read a transcript of the interview here.

Guest Editors: Ketil Thorgersen (Sweden)  Lauri Väkevä (Finland) , Mikko Myllykoski (Finland) Steve Dillon (Australia), Alex Ruthmann (USA)

Call for papers

Brief description
This special issue of JMTE will examine the affordances of the application of ‘open source’ to music education. Each article will focus on one particular aspect and context.

The publication of this special issue follows on from an international symposium presentation at the Research in Music Education conference in Exeter in the UK in April 2011. The symposium revealed significant aspects of the need to apply development of philosophy and practice around the concept of open source in music classrooms.

Cynthia Weber’s I am an American project website launches today at www.iamanamericanproject.com .
 
Featuring:
 

• 13 testimonial films plus an alternative I am an American PSA
• excepts and images from Weber’s book I am an American:  Filming the Fear of Difference
• interactive ‘comments flags’ where users can express their views

 An excellent tool for public engagement, teaching, and research.

 

With preparations well underway for what promises to be a lively and insightful three days, Intellect is greatly looking forward to all that the upcoming International Conference on Applied Arts, hosted by North Edinburgh Arts and in association with Amnesty International, will have to offer.

Bringing together around a hundred artists, activists and academics from across the world, the conference will explore the ways that art practices engage critically with society.

The conference will also see the launch of the special Arts and Human Rights edition of The Journal of Arts and Communities, which is being published in partnership with Amnesty International as part of the celebrations of the 50th Anniversary of the founding of Amnesty International.

Call for Articles for Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture

Special Issue:  Media’s toxic knowledge: How information (does not) shapes our perception of social uncertainty

Editor: Rita Figueiras, Catholic University of Portugal
Co-Editor: Carla Ganito, Catholic University of Portugal

Bravely into the hotbed of uncertainties, as Zygmunt Bauman introduces his 2007 book: ‘Liquid Times. Living in an Age of Uncertainty’, is what this special issue aims to do by discussing social uncertainty and the media.

What is here being entitled media’s toxic knowledge is related to what commonly is referred as (mis)information both produced by and circulating in the media. This is the starting point for a three-step approach. First by displacing ‘toxic knowledge’ from the media logic into media social setting; second by approaching social uncertainty as a self-fulfilling prophecy; and third, how this is a matter of democracy understood in its broader sense.

We are currently attending the Trans/National Clothing Cultures conference at Bath Spa University, if you are at the conference please drop by and say hello.

During the conference members of our team are on hand to answer any questions you might have about Intellect or publishing in general. We will also be looking for exciting articles for our journals.

The conference runs from the 1st - 4th of September and is being held  the Bath School of Art and Design. 

The aim of the conference:

"We all wear clothes and we are all citizens of the world. We are all therefore invested at some level in the production and consumption of clothing and so this project is both universal and personal, addressing [and dressing] us all. The aim of the conference is the establishment of a Trans/national Clothing Network. This will be a collaborative partnership, with industry backing and sponsorship that aims to establish a network to consider and address issues arising from the production and consumption of clothing"

For more information visit www.transnationalclothing.com.

Read a brief interview with James Campbell, Intellect's representative at the conference

The Journal of Arts and Communities is publishing a special Arts and Human Rights edition in partnership with Amnesty International as part of the celebrations of the 50th Anniversary of the founding of Amnesty International.
 
The special issue will be launched at the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award at the Edinburgh Festival on 25th August 2011, and also at the Knowing Ways: Critical Learning in Arts Practice International Conference on the 8th-10th September 2011.

Each year at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the prestigious Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award is given to a Fringe play that engages strongly with a Human Rights issue, as well as being of an outstanding artistic quality.

The Judges for the Award include Joyce McMillan, theatre critic and columnist for The Scotsman and Neil Cooper writer and critic for The Herald, who are Guest Editors for this special edition and Stephanie Knight, Associate Editor of Journal of Arts and Communities.
 

Renowned scholar Cynthia Weber is certainly no stranger to tackling difficult subjects, have a listen to the author's latest interview, this time on the nationally syndicated US radio show Dresser After Dark. Weber definitely pulls no punches as she discusses the highly emotive subject of what it means to be an American post 9/11.

Follow this link to listen to the interview now.

You can also listen to Professor Weber's previous interview with the US radio host Bill LuMaye of News Radio 680 WPTF. During this interview she discusses her book and documentary project, I am an American: Filming the Fear of Difference,

Click here to listen to an MP3 of the broadcast

Cynthia Weber is Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex and Co-Editor, International Feminist Journal of Politics. Her book I am an American: Filming the Fear of Difference is published by Intellect.