TORONTO, April 1, 2003 -- The latest issue of TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies based at York University, examines the star machine and the double-edged sword of non-conformity in media treatment of Canadian Celtic Pop music star Ashley MacIsaac. The new issue (No. 8, Fall 2002), edited by York cultural studies scholar Jody Berland, also tackles the pervasiveness of television in our lives and its ultimate disappearance.

Ashley MacIsaac: Star Image, Queer Identity, and the Politics of Outing, by Cape Bretoner Erna MacLeod, a doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, describes the rise and fall of Ashley MacIsaac in the popular media, and where the line gets drawn in Canadian public acceptance of non-conformity in art. She says the "denunciation of MacIsaac’s behaviour and self-destructive practices obscures the music industry’s and media’s role in constructing his popularity early in his career and dismantling his star image in subsequent years."

In Television and Objecthood: The "Place" of Television in Television Studies, York professor of communications and culture Kevin Dowler discusses the end of conventional television broadcasting and the disappearance of the television, and the implications that may have for research. "The television no longer operates as a portal to somewhere else," says Dowler, it is now part of the surrounding architecture. Noting that structures have entered into a new relationship with communication technologies, he says "the building is no longer merely the support for media technologies of various sorts; it has become one of those technologies."

The struggle between private and public control of the Internet is also examined, by Robert Luke, a Graduate Fellow with the University of Toronto’s Knowledge Media Design Institute. Gary Genosko and Kristina Marcellus at Lakehead University, and Samir Gandesha at the University of Potsdam jointly assess the significance of the Toronto Telos Group in introducing European critical theory to the North American audience in the philosophy journal Telos. And Grant Havers at Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C. examines the influence of Leo Strauss on Canadian political philosopher George Grant.

TOPIA is entering its sixth year of publication and the Spring 2003 issue will be published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press. TOPIA publishes current peer reviewed research in cultural studies by scholars in Canada and around the world. While emphasizing Canadian concerns, it is committed to encouraging multiple Canadian and transnational perspectives, traditions, and debates. For information on back issues, visit www.yorku.ca/topia/. TOPIA is available at the York University Bookstore, the University of Toronto Bookstore, Pages Magazines and Books, and from Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

  -30-

For further information, please contact:

Prof. Jody Berland	Susan Bigelow
Graduate Program in Communication  & Culture, and School of Arts and Letters	Media Relations
Atkinson Faculty, York University	York University
416-654-1727	416-736-2100, ext. 22091
jody.berland@sympatico.ca	sbigelow@yorku.ca

YU/034/03