Intellect

We were very sad to hear about the death of Hans J. Kleinsteuber, editorial board member of the International Journal of Digital Television. Jeffrey A. Hart, associate editor of the journal, remembers him:

Hans J. Kleinsteuber, Professor and Founder of the Research Center on Media and Politics of the University of Hamburg, died of cancer on February 18, 2012, at the age of 68.
 
Hans was born in 1943 in Lemgo, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.  He received his undergraduate diploma in political science from the Otto Suhr Institute of the Free University of Berlin in 1967.  After a year of postgraduate work in political science, economics and diplomacy at Tufts and Harvard, he became a programmer for IBM, stationed first in Frankfurt and later in Berlin.  He completed his doctoral work at the Free University of Berlin in 1975.  His dissertation dealt with transportation policy making in the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission.  He received an appointment as Professor of Political Science at the University of Hamburg in 1976.  In 1987, he founded the Research Center on Media and Politics within the Department of Political Science at Hamburg, a place for the promotion of interdisciplinary research on the media.  Topics explored at the Center included (among others) media regulation, the media in Europe, public service broadcasting, the impact of the media on society and politics, and the new digital media.

We try to attend all the Popular Culture Association events internationally and over the last three years have built a strong relationship with the PCA and now publish the research of many of its members. Intellect also publishes the Journal of European Popular Culture, The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture and The Canadian Journal of Popular Culture, which are the journals of the respective regional PCAs.

Intellect will again be attending the PCA/ACA National conference, which takes place in Boston this week (11-14 April). If you are attending the event we want to take this opportunity to invite you to drop by our booth (Booth 16, Back Bay Conference and Exhibition Room, 3rd Floor). 

At the conference we will be exhibiting our latest publications and looking for submissions for our existing journals as well as ideas for new books and journals, so please pass on this information to your colleagues, especially those seeking publishing opportunities. 

I would also like to invite you to our ‘Meet the Editors’ sessions that we will be running during the conference. These informal sessions will be held at our booth and are an opportunity to meet our editors and ask them any questions you might have about their journals and the editing process, they will also be looking for relevant contributions to the journals during these events.

Scheduled events will take place on Friday 13^th April and will be held at Booth 16, Back Bay Conference and Exhibition Room, 3rd Floor:

• 11am: Meet the Editor with Flavia Laviosa, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies
• 2pm: Introducing Intellect’s latest fashion journals and Meet the Editors session with Joseph Hancock, Fashion, Style & Popular Culture; Jo Turney and Alex Franklin, Clothing Cultures; Andrew Reilly, Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion
• 3pm: Meet the Editor with Katherine Larsen, Journal of Fandom Studies 

News and information regarding Intellect can be found on our website, http://www.intellectbooks.com, if you have any questions or would like any further information please don’t hesitate to contact James Campbell. If you would like to arrange a meeting please email me with your availabilities.

We look forward to seeing you in Boston.

Intellect is delighted to invite you to the launch of our ground-breaking publication TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault: An Unreasonable Body of Work, a new book edited by award winning dramaturg Judith Rudakoff. In TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault, Rudakoff brings together a diverse group of contributors, including artists, scholars, and Arsenault herself to offer an exploration of beauty, image, and the notion of queerness through the lens of Arsenault’s highly personal brand of performance art.

On the night Nina Arsenault will perform an excerpt from The Silicone Diaries and both she and Judith will be available for book signing. Books will be available to purchase on the night. The event will take place on May 4th from 7-10pm at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Toronto.

For further information please contact marketing@intellectbooks.com or Buddies in Bad Times: Box Office: 416-975-8555 or visit www.buddiesinbadtimes.com.

RSVP not required.

Date: Friday, May 4th
Time: 7-10pm
Venue: Buddies in Bad Times Theatre,
12 Alexander Street, Toronto

"World Film Locations: Dublin is part of the admirable Intellect Books collection of World Film Locations – the Phileas Fogg-like series that travels around the world celebrating an array of cities and the different ways they have been imagined and utilized as movie locations.

Dublin is the focus of the latest addition to the series and provides a fascinating angle on Ireland’s capital city through scenes from classic and contemporary Irish films, providing 46 snapshots  from films that were shot or set in Dublin.

Impress your friends the next time you’re supping stout in Mulligans on Poolbeg St by casually mentioning that ‘My Left Foot was shot in here’ and have tremendous craic as people look down at your foot with alarm before you reassure them ‘No, not my left foot; My Left Foot – the film.’

Next time time you’re walking around the laneways of Camden Street amaze your friends with the hilarious anecdote that ‘this is where Paul got mugged, beaten and castrated by 2 scumbags’ and have tremendous craic as people look at Paul with alarm before you reassure them ‘No, not Paul; Paul in Savage – the film.’

The book’s scenes feature chronologically from 46 films spanning from 1959 to 2011, from Shake Hands with the Devil to Between the Canals, and each analysis is accompanied by 5/6 stills from the scene in question bringing each brief synopsis to visual life.

A series of two-page essays punctuate the book, taking in  a variety of angles of the portrayal of Dublin as a cinematic city; a musical city; a city of revolution; a literary city; a city of gangsters; and of booms and busts.

The book’s editors, Caroline Whelan and Jez Conolly, have put together an accessible and enjoyable read that can be dipped into for nuggets or appreciated for its more cultured examination of Dublin’s cinematic heritage on a deeper level.

Providing an insight into how Dublin has both shaped and been shaped by filmmakers, World Film Locations:Dublin is an engaging journey through Dublin and its representation on screen."

“I am originally from Italy [Rome], where I attended a BA and MA in Media Studies at the Università Pontificia Salesiana, with a specialization in television production,” states Italian academic Serena Formica. “The Master's covered a variety of subjects, including cinema. I have always been fascinated by the cinema; and I had a particular interest for Classic Hollywood cinema and Italian Neorealism. When the opportunity came to researching film at an academic level, I decided to investigate my favourite director at the time, Alfred Hitchcock."

Read on

Intellect is delighted to announce the publication of Volume 2 Numbers 1 & 2 of Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty: a special issue on fashion and ethics

Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty focuses on issues of power, social positioning, ideologies and practices within the web of relationships between creators, producers, practitioners and end-users of fashion. This special double issue on fashion and ethics brings to the forefront some of the ethical controversies, raising the question of whether 'ethical fashion' is actually a contradiction in terms, as editor Efrat Tseëlon suggests in her editorial. Offering a critique of some of the fundamental assumptions, this issue seeks to expose the ideologies of ethical fashion, which often mask its status as a product that uses ethical credentials as a marketing ploy to relieve consumers' guilt.

In his article 'Fashionable dilemmas', Austin Williams questions the concept of ethical fashion, examining what he considers its self-appointed morality and ability to 'impose on the underdeveloped world the idea that environmental concerns should take priority over poverty alleviation and human development'. Williams suggests that supposedly ethical companies use consumers' sense of morality to get to their bank balances, arguing that while designers are under ever mounting pressure to be 'ethical', such subjective 'moral' considerations may do as much harm as good.

'Postcard collectors with minuscule niche interests are publishing their holdings in droves, with brief explanations of how they became obsessed...

Visitors to nuclear labs and wastelands bought the disturbing photos shown in “Atomic Postcards: Radioactive Messages From the Cold War” (Intellect/University of Chicago Press). The authors, the Canadian historians John O’Brian and Jeremy Borsos, focused on artifacts published between the 1940s and ’80s, with clueless upbeat messages on the backs.

“Pray for Peace” is the rote postmark sometimes stamped on the backs. “Really swell to be here,” a tourist named Betty, visiting Nevada, wrote to her sister Agnes on a 1950s image of a mushroom cloud blooming over Yucca Flat.

“Even postcards mailed at the edge of danger rarely stray from a lingua franca of cheerfulness,” Mr. O’Brian writes.'

Click to view Atomic Postcards...

Read the article in full here...

'Overall, this is a rich collection of essays on New Zealand film, history and identity and one that is well overdue. It serves as both a provocation for further film-based research, as well as an inspiration to those who seek to tease out the rich multilayered textures of its boundary crossings. The volume is generously illustrated and includes some excellent images garnered from such sources as the New Zealand Film Archive and Archives New Zealand. The filmography included at the back of the book, divided into the primary films discussed and other films cited, is a useful referencing device and a nice complement to the bibliography. Appropriately, this volume is dedicated to the memory of Mereta Mita (who died in 2010), and whose role in Fourth Cinema (Barry Barclay’s term for “cinema made by Indigenous peoples with a kind of Indigenous essence”) was highly significant. New Zealand Cinema: Interpreting the Past will be an important reference work for some time to come and a benchmark for other settler societies that seek to open up colonial history to greater scrutiny through visual media.'

Read on...

There is no end.  There is no beginning.  There is only the passion of life. ~ Federico Fellini
 
While Fellini casts a long shadow over Italian cinema, Italian media continues to evolve and flourish. Please join the editor of the Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies (JICMS) at the Boston Plaza Hotel at 1:00 pm on Friday, March 23, for the launch of Intellect’s newest journal.  Flavia Laviosa will be on hand to discuss this English-language journal dedicated to Italian film and media production, reception and consumption. JICMS is peer-reviewed and invites submissions of scholarly articles relating to the artistic features, cultural themes, international influence and history of Italian film and media as art forms and industries. Join us at the Intellect display at the Society for Cinema & Media Studies conference to meet Flavia and learn more about this exciting new journal. Viva il cinema italiano!

For further information about Intellect events at SCMS please contact Intelect's North American Representative Amy Damutz.

You’re invited! Film director Peter Weir will be the topic of conversation at Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel at 2pm Friday, March 23rd. 

Please join Serena Formica, author of Peter Weir: A Creative Journey from Australia to Hollywood, at the Intellect exhibit during the Society for Media and Cinema Studies conference to learn more about this acclaimed director from Down Under. Serena is on hand to discuss the cinematic output of this Australian auteur, who has garnered numerous awards and widespread critical kudos—from his early short films of the 1970s to the Hollywood hits he’s helmed since 1985, including the likes of Witness, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show, and Master and Commander. Join her to chat and get your signed copy of this in demand title.