Magazine Reviews

Routledge's Celebrity Studies, MyTekLife, and more

By Steve Black -- Library Journal, 04/30/2010

New Reviews for May:
Aquaculture North America | Celebrity Studies | EDIS Bulletin | MyTekLife | The Point

Aquaculture North America. 2010. bi-m. $27.95. Ed: Peter Chettleburgh. illus. adv. Aud: Ac, GA (Subject: Aquaculture. Issue examined: Vol. 1, Issue 1, Jan./Feb. 2010)
This tabloid format trade publication continues Northern Aquaculture (ISSN 1183-2428). The primary market for Aquaculture North America is people who raise finfish and shellfish, but the publication may be of interest to environmentalists and to anyone curious about how seafood is produced. Exactly what do farmed fish eat? This publication addresses that in some detail. The examined issue also includes stories about Bill Clinton lauding a Haitian tilapia farm, data on catfish and trout farming, battles over Snake River (Idaho) water, and FDA regulations for raw oysters. The style of writing and advertising content is typical of a trade magazine—informative, easy to read, and tightly targeted to its intended audience. Although the content is easily understood by general readers, Aquaculture North America’s special focus makes it most appropriate for academic libraries supporting fisheries science. It should also be considered for collections on environmental science or food science. [Sample issue (PDF).]

Celebrity Studies. 2010. 3/yr. $428. Eds: Sean Redmond & Su Holmes. ISSN 1939-2397. Aud: Ac (Subject: Celebrities in Mass Media. Issue examined: Vol. 1, No. 1, Mar. 2010)
Quoting the journal’s web site, "Celebrity Studies aims to address key issues in the production, circulation and consumption of fame, and its manifestations in both contemporary and historical contexts, while functioning as a key site for academic debate about the enterprise of celebrity studies itself." The editors justify the need for this scholarly journal in a slightly defensive introduction that includes reference to journalist Matthew Bell’s prediction that Celebrity Studies will have "plenty of pseudo-academic mumbo jumbo." But they convincingly argue that serious study of the gender politics, power relations, and history of the culture of celebrity is an important element of media and cultural studies and deserving of its own journal. Scholarly studies in the examined issue discuss people who jump from bridges, celebrities’ use of emotion in the media, Barack Obama, and Jackie Chan. Celebrity Studies is a worthy addition to academic collections on media and cultural studies. [Sample issue. The institutional subscription price above includes electronic access; eISSN 1939-2400; online-only subs: $406.]

EDIS Bulletin. 1989. s-a. $113 institutional membership, includes Emily Dickinson Journal. Ed: Kathleen Welton. ISSN 1055-3932. Aud: Ac, GA (Subject: Emily Dickinson. Issue examined: Vol. 21, No. 2, Nov./Dec. 2009)
The Emily Dickinson International Society (EDIS) publishes two periodicals packaged together as a membership subscription, the scholarly Emily Dickinson Journal and its recently redesigned newsletter. The new EDIS Bulletin has higher quality paper and printing; color illustrations grace the covers. It includes the standard newsletter reports on the society’s conferences and chapter activities, but, for an informal newsletter, it contains an unusually robust assortment of criticism and interpretation. It has stories about actors, museum curators, and authors intimately involved with Dickinson’s life and work, poets’ responses to Dickinson, and dozens of reviews ranging from a full page of book reviews to briefly annotated notes on recent journal articles. The result is a publication that successfully reaches a dual audience of members interested in the society’s activities and readers interested in Dickinson. Society newsletters that come with a journal subscription are often of little use to library patrons, but EDIS Bulletin has enough substance to justify fully cataloging and retaining it on the shelves. A fine choice for any collection on American literature. [Archives from 11/1/03 to the present are available in EBSCO's Humanities International Complete.]

MyTekLife. 2009. q. $19.95. Ed: Ed Martinez. illus. adv. Aud: GA (Subject: Technology and Civilization. Issue examined: Winter 2009)
Distributed in the Phoenix metropolitan area but available by subscription, MyTekLife is a 52-page glossy sporting a loosely applied theme of the impact of technology on our lives. The advertisements are mostly for goods and services in southern Arizona, but the articles have national interest, even though many are focused on local businesses. Stories that advance the technology theme cover how photo radar is used to monitor traffic, creating petroleum from algae, NASA’s Mars rover, making ethanol from garbage, and railroad safety operations. The personality profiles tend to be rather loosely tied to the technology theme. The overall tone and substance are similar to an in-flight magazine’s—often mildly interesting but lacking depth. The majority of content in the examined issue is authored by the editor, which gives the impression that it’s almost a one-man show. Martinez does a competent job of providing light reading, but there’s no compelling reason for libraries to subscribe.

The Point. 2009. s-a. $18. Eds: Jon Baskin, Jonny Thakkar, & Etay Zwick. ISSN 2153-4438. illus. adv. Aud: Ac, GA (Subject: Philosophy. Issues examined: Vol. 1, Issue 1, Spring 2009; Issue 2, Winter 2010)
Part literary review and part commentary on modern life, The Point is a venue for contemporary philosophers to reflect on a range of issues. As one would expect from a collection of philosophical essays, the distinctive strength of The Point is the way authors relate current issues to deeper questions and the writings of important thinkers. "Predatory Habits," for instance, links Wall Street to Thorstein Veblen’s theory of the barbarian attitude toward work. The symposium "What Is Film For?" addresses the role of film around the world from a variety of philosophic perspectives. The Point’s essays place contemporary thought in historical context with a style and structure that will be familiar to readers of the New York Review of Books. Readers need not have a background in philosophy, but a solid base of general knowledge is assumed. Straddling the divide between popular and scholarly, The Point is an excellent general interest periodical for academic libraries; also appropriate for public libraries serving patrons who enjoy philosophy.

See Magazine Reviews for Jan.–Apr. 2010